


How a God Could Know My First Name

by m_hart



Series: Wild Tigers I Have Known [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Blackmail, Cosette And Enjolras Are Siblings, Eating Disorders, Explicit Sexual Content, Misgendering, Multi, Other, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Romani Character, Romani Grantaire, Sexual Harassment, TRANS ANGST, Threesome - M/M/Other, Trans Character, Trans Enjolras, Transphobia, deadnaming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-30 08:22:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 78,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5156801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_hart/pseuds/m_hart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been six years since Enjolras last saw Grantaire; six years since he and his twin Cosette were mysteriously adopted on Christmas day. The twins escaped from the poverty of their foster home with the Thénardiers into comfort, even luxury, with their humble new father. But although it has been years, Enjolras still aches for the earthy boy in the attic.<br/>In his first year at university, Enjolras has had his great triumphs. He has an unparalleled group of friends that he has found in his newly emerging society for the betterment of humankind. But as much as he loves and trusts his friends, he has his secrets, and they are piling up - and the ghosts of his past threaten to unravel them all. </p><p>**Updates every other Friday** (See notes for additional warnings per chapter)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ARE YA READY KIDS??  
> "Wild Tigers I Have Known" named for Emily Jane White's song of the same name.  
> "How a God Could Know My First Name" from "I Was a Lid" by Manchester Orchestra.
> 
> To new readers: If you haven't read Part I, much of this fic may be lost on you. This is the continuation of a story that you are bursting into the middle of.  
> To continuing readers: *chuckles evilly* 
> 
> **THERE WILL BE CHAPTER-SPECIFIC TRIGGER WARNINGS AT THE BEGINNING OF EACH CHAPTER!** Scan them so that you can be sure you'll be alright with the content!  
> **Translations of the French are at the bottom!**
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Anxiety, medication, dysphoria

  **[From: _(unknown number)_** **13:42]**

>> _The sun breaks over Paris this January day, snowbright and cool. Will she shine on me? - C_

Enjolras’s trembling fingers missed the delete button four times. When at last the text had blinked away, he hastily shoved the phone into his back pocket and returned his hands to his laptop keyboard, where his fingertips lingered hesitantly. He stared hard at the screen before him but couldn’t seem to recall what he had been typing. The document was blurred and swimming.

 “What the fuck does that even mean, Enjolras?” Feuilly’s smoke-rough voice drifted through his wired coil of unfocused but vibrating energy.

Enjolras felt warm in the face and sick in the stomach. Feuilly was close, practically looming over him, and Enjolras could feel the heat of his breath spreading against the side of his hair. He was was gesturing at something on the screen. A sliver of white was hewn into his brown knuckles, the scar marring through the dusting of dark freckles across the back of his hand. “I dunno,” Enjolras murmured, fixated.

“What? Look at this. Who are you even talking to?”

Enjolras turned and looked at Feuilly, uncertain of himself. Feuilly’s golden-brown eyes were trained on him, his body settled too closely to Enjolras’s own on the couch cushions. Enjolras skin felt like ice but his lungs felt like suffocating flames.

“Because it sure as hell isn’t the undereducated and underexposed that you’re attempting to invigorate. If you’re trying to reach the population of kids in whom apathy has been bred as a tool of oppression, it might help to talk like you actually understand them. You talk like their wacky English professor with too much heart and a crumbling thesaurus. This is good shit Enjolras, it gets _my_ blood pumping, but this isn’t anything relatable to the people you’re trying to reach.”  
  
Enjolras managed to regain himself in the face of the criticism, and he pulled an irritated scowl. “I resent my peer group being referred to as kids, old man. What are you criticizing exactly? My tactics or my vocabulary? Should I be dumbing it down to monosyllables, or perhaps instead of a speech, should I be composing a _rap_ to get the attention of today’s youth?” Feuilly snorted, and Enjolras instinctively turned to Courfeyrac on his other side. If he wasn’t going to defend Enjolras and implore Feuilly to have faith in his oration which goes beyond vocabulary to reach the soul in the way that a drum beat can invoke more passion than lyrics, then he was at least going to respond to the ‘today’s youth’ bit and make a joke about how the machine is becoming self-aware. But Courfeyrac was very thoroughly distracted.  
  
Across his minimally furnished loft apartment, saturday afternoon sunlight was pouring through the spacious windows and illuminating the pair nestled in a white armchair. Combeferre sat daintily cross-legged in the seat, comfortable and elegant, looking like perhaps a pipe between his teeth would complete the picture. Jehan was perched upon the arm with their bare pink feet in Combeferre’s lap. A large illustrated tome of Greek Mythology was balanced on Combeferre’s knees - it was an ancient water-stained thing, pages yellow and worn at the edges from where Enjolras had thumbed at them beneath the blankets with a flashlight in his other hand when he was twelve years old - and the pair of them were browsing it together. Jehan was curled forward, bracing themself on (and practically wrapped around) Combeferre’s shoulder, with one hand carding through the man’s two-toned hair. Combeferre seemed not to notice as he flipped through the pages and they took turns pointing and whispering comments to one another.  
  
From the couch beside him, Courfeyrac looked nothing short of enraptured. He was straining forward with his elbows resting on his knees, hands cupping his face. Enjolras cleared his throat, drumming his fingers against the keyboard. Nobody noticed.  
  
“Get a room,” Feuilly drawled and collapsed back against the sofa. One arm relaxed across the backrest, the crook of Feuilly’s elbow brushed against Enjolras’s hair, and he leaned forward away from the touch with buzzing pink cheeks.  
  
The exclamation broke the spell. Courfeyrac settled back into the couch with an unreadable expression and Combeferre glanced up with a deep blush. Jehan, ever shameless, just puddled themself more fully on top of Combeferre. “Sounds like a command to me, my _Combe-cher_ …”  
  
Enjolras looked pleadingly at Feuilly and the man met his eyes and shook his head, laughing warmly. Feuilly was his last resort, his trusted aromantic compatriate, in whom he could have faith to share his distaste for the way his friends so often seemed to lose their focus in a hazy pink glow… (How bitterly ironic it was that he could feel that same glow encroaching on his senses whenever the older man himself was near.)  
  
“Whatever,” he shrugged, saving his work and closing his laptop. “It’s already nearly ten ‘til. We ought to get going.” He shuffled for the laptop bag at his feet.  
  
Right-o, captain,” Combeferre sang back. Enjolras rolled his eyes fondly at the familiarity of that perky, sunny tone - it typically accompanied him when he arrived at breakfast arm in arm with Courfeyrac, or when he returned from a trip to the library with Jehan. It was Combeferre at his giddiest and Enjolras could hardly object to that happiness, fuzzy pink glow or no. “Have you taken your medicine yet, Enjolras?” his friend inquired.  
  
Enjolras sighed forcefully and threw himself backwards against the couch. “No, _dad_.”

“Come now Enjolras,” Courfeyrac purred, “you know I’m the only one allowed to call Combeferre that.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes with such exaggerated effort that it took his whole head with it. He slumped against the couch completely, making dead weight of himself, and groaned again. “Hot,”   
  
Courfeyrac chuckled and then jumped off the couch and hefted Enjolras’s body up over his shoulder.  
  
“Damn it,” Enjolras murmured, beating half-heartedly against Courfeyrac’s back as he was escorted to the bathroom in a fireman’s carry.  
  
“Limp noodle isn’t very effective when you way all of a hundred pounds, Enjolras,” his abductor snarked with glittering eyes and deposited him on his feet in front of the bathroom door. He groaned a third time, loudest of all, and backed into the bathroom behind a slammed door.  
  
Alone in the bathroom, Enjolras let the theatrical irritation drift away. As much as he protested, he was glad for the steadfast insistence of his right hand men. It had been a great concern of his when he moved into his apartment for university that he would no longer have Cosette to remind him to take his medicine, or to help him through all the rituals he required to keep his life in functioning order. But Combeferre and Courfeyrac had arrived and filled that gap excellently.  
  
There were three pills in today’s box in his pill organizer and when he had swallowed them each down he took a look at himself in the mirror. Leaning awkwardly over the sink, he scanned his jaw. Nothing. Not even a little. It had been a full 18 months now, and at this point he was starting to think it was never going to happen. Not that he was desperate for a beard or anything, but he wanted to know that he _could_ , if he wanted to. One morning he had woken in Combeferre’s apartment after a study-session-turned-Wes-Anderson-marathon and stood in the bathroom door watching his best friend shave the stubble from his cheeks, and he had felt a profound envy, a longing for the normalcy of this simple act of manhood. The memory brought a flush to his tragically barren face.  
  
It would never work out between him and Feuilly anyway, he thought mournfully. When Feuilly did forge partnerships it was for the sex. And Enjolras’s sex… was not what Feuilly was looking for.  
  
Enjolras brought cupped handfuls of cold tap-water to douse the flame in his cheeks. When they had been patted dry, he left the bathroom to find that Feuilly and Jehan had already departed and Courfeyrac and Combeferre were waiting for him at the door.  
  
Combeferre extended Enjolras’s red coat to him from where it had been hanging beside the door. Bag in hand, Enjolras took the coat and looked to his friend resolutely. Combeferre nodded.  
  
“Keys and wallet?”  
  
Enjolras opened his bag and began to root through its carefully organized pockets. “Check.”  
  
“Phone, laptop, and both chargers?”  
  
“Check to all.”  
  
“Notebook, pens and highlighters?”  
  
“Got ‘em.”  
  
“Earbuds?”  
  
“Yep.”  
  
“Xanax?”  
  
“Right here.”  
  
“Emergency boredom book?”  
  
“Got it.”  
  
“Snack?”  
  
Enjolras dug deep and found the half-eaten bag of peanut M&Ms and a nutrigrain bar. “Check.”  
  
“Have you eaten today?”  
  
Enjolras shifted uncomfortably. He always hated that question, but he knew it was necessary. “Scrambled eggs and a banana,” he hastily said, and mentally tried to calculate whether that had been too much or not enough, and whether it was what Combeferre wanted to hear.  
  
“Good job. _Allons-y_!” Enjolras let out a light breath of relief.  
  
The three of them headed out together. In truth, it was rare that Enjolras actually forgot any of those things, but if he didn’t run through his leaving-the-house list he’d be suffocated with the anxious certainty that something crucial had been left behind until he stopped and went through it. He could do it himself just fine, but something about Combeferre’s warm assuredness or Courfeyrac’s helpful perk made it feel more concrete and secure.  
  
The walk to the Musain was pleasant, if cold. The more often he walked this route, the more calm and familiar it was, though it had once been impossible for Enjolras to walk along a crowded street. People washed by without ever really looking at him; just as he preferred it. Even the catcalls, which had once been cause for panic, were now merely a nuisance (though they did still get his heart rate up and often require carefully measured and counted breaths to recover from). The worst part of those were the obvious assumption of his gender. Enjolras just tried not to think about it too hard, and instead focused on picturing all the actors and fashion models he had saved in a file on his computer labelled ‘encouragement’ - individuals with one thing in common, that they were cis men prized for their feminine features and builds, especially those reminiscent of Enjolras’s own. Removing Andreja Pejic from the folder had been a deep disappointment and an elating joy all at once. For all the features that he and she may have had in common before, he supposed that they had even more in common now.  
  
When they arrived at the Musain Feuilly was ordering drinks at the bar with Bahorel beside him and Joly and Bossuet hovering by the hall that led to the stairs. “Enjolras,” Feuilly called, waving him over, and Enjolras went.  
  
“Jehan’s roommate finally showed! He’s brought ours too. We’ve been trying to recruit them since we joined, I guess they could finally be arsed. You’ll either love R or you’ll loathe him, it could really go either way... He’s not much for politics but he’s smart as _fuck_ , and as well-read as you, I’ll bet. We were in foster care together, I think I mentioned? He’s not exactly an activist, but he’s a good man.”  
  
Enjolras nodded. “Any man who comes with high accolades from you is worth my attention.”  
  
“He’ll probably even know what accolades means,” Feuilly winked with a chuckle and left the bar with a tray full of drinks.  
  
Enjolras followed him. Settling between Combeferre and Courfeyrac again they headed down the hall together towards their meeting room behind a line of their friends. “You’ve both met this R fellow, haven’t you? He comes highly recommended by Feuilly. Do you think he’s a good fit?”  
  
Courfeyrac laughed. “Good fit for what? For _Les Amis_ _de l’ABC_ , it’s hard to say. There’s flame in his heart, no doubt, though what it burns for exactly is a mystery to me. But for _les amis de Courfeyrac_ , there is no better. I love him immensely.”  
  
Enjolras turned to Combeferre, who was nodding contemplatively. “He reminds me of you, actually, in speech. You have many mannerisms in common. There is an aura… of sameness, despite some very obvious differences.”               
  
Enjolras considered this as they climbed the stairs together, falling a step behind as the stairwell could not accommodate three men abreast. Above them their chattering friends were parting as they left the stairs, taking drinks from Feuilly’s tray and scattering to their respective places. Enjolras came up last of all, emerging between his pair of lieutenants and scanning the room for the new recruits.  


 

He found his eyes.  
  
Murky eyes, deep eyes.  
  
Eyes like the wine-dark sea, like a night tempest, like attic shadows.  
  
If there was air in this god damned attic room, Enjolras could not find it, though he choked for it like a drowning man.  
  
“Angèle?” came the violent burst of the sun going supernova in the sky, brightness too headache white to comprehend, the feeling of red on his skin, red that seared him to his bones, skin melted, flesh raw, exposed for everyone to see, for all of his friends to know his charred nakedness, what he looked like underneath -  
  
A history, a nightmare, an attic room laid bare in a word, a man and woman before him, a brother and a holy terror, a god thought dead and the body that shaped bruises, shaped injured cries -  
  
Shades from a time long buried, shades with eyes like thunder -    
  
“Angèle?” came the sound of Enjolras’s carefully constructed universe folding in on itself. Angèle Enjolras, a girl, a woman, a pretender, a liar, a freak. A hundred eyes upon Angèle Enjolras, a hundred eyes of friends turned preying wolves.  
  
His friends were all beloved of the risen corpse of his Grantaire and the devil’s own Éponine Thénardier.  
  
Enjolras turned on his heel, took the stairs three at a time, and left the Musain behind.  

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fallout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter include!!  
> A panic attack, taking of Xanax and the effects thereof, self-directed transphobia, trauma, fighting between friends;  
> EPONINE BEING A MAJOR BITCH, with a side dish of transphobia and misgendering (to be clear: she's having a shit-ass reaction that has a lot more to do with her own fear and self-loathing than any particular feelings about Enjolras's gender or trans people in general, and over the course of the fic she stops behaving the petty way she is right now), mentions of alcohol/drinking;  
> implied ambiguous trauma in the recent past, smoking, sex mention
> 
> (I love how sometimes I have chapters with 0 warnings and sometimes I have chapters with like 30)

 

In the upper floor of the Musain, the silence was piercing. Grantaire’s heart was lobbing, frantic as a hummingbird, and his stomach felt like the floor beneath him had vanished. Everything hurt. He was vaguely aware of gripping Éponine’s arm; barely cognizant of Jehan’s fluttering hands nearby. The only thing he could quite process was the dark empty hole of the stairwell where he could swear he had seen a ghost. A ghost, a ghost is all it could have been, a phantom, a sylph, a malfunctioning memory, like that night on the bleachers…

“Grantaire,” Éponine whispered, and when he looked at her he knew. 

Grantaire, voices were whispering, hovering, clearer and clearer. 

“Grantaire,” Combeferre called steadily, and finally he looked up at the man. What was it about Combeferre, he wondered, what was it about those cool grey eyes that can so anchor a man? They are the tethers of flighty spirits to this world. I am a spirit haunted, a haunting, I am wild to be released… 

“Grantaire, do you know him?”

“Do I know…” The words were numb in his mouth, confused. 

“Do you _know_ him, do you know Enjolras?” Courfeyrac cut in harshly. He had nothing of Combeferre’s solid ground. Courfeyrac’s voice was all acid, and Grantaire felt burned. 

“I know... Enjolras, yes,” he admitted, careful to parrot their words, careful not to step beyond the guided boundaries of this perplexing crime scene. “We… we were kids together,” he said. Kids together, as though that were all it ever was.

Combeferre and Courfeyrac exchanged an inscrutable glance. It considered, and returned. “Grantaire, what’s your given name?” asked Courfeyrac.

Well that was rather out of left field. Grantaire crooked an eyebrow and looked around the room. Bossuet’s eyes were wide, lips parted, he looked afraid. Joly beside him was livid, as though the moment he could discern what wrong-doing had been done here, he would correct it with his fragile fist. Feuilly was a lost puppy, head cocked, eyes darting, trying to make sense of the scene, and Bahorel’s bottle hadn’t left his lips since the room had erupted, though it merely lingered there dry. Jehan beside Grantaire seemed clouded. They had receded into themself in the way that Jehan only could in the most grim of circumstances. 

“Dmitry,” Grantaire finally returned to the friends-turned-guard-dogs hounding him. “Dmitry Grigore Grantaire.” Courfeyrac’s shoulders dropped minutely and a huff of breath passed his lips. Combeferre shut his eyes momentarily. The two locked gazes again, and Grantaire couldn’t tell if that had been the worse or better answer.   
 

After only a moment of silent, seemingly telepathic dialogue, it appeared that things had been decided: Courfeyrac lurched away, disappearing down the stairs presumably after Enjolras, and Combeferre cleared his throat and began ruffling through his bag. “There’s no sense in continuing the meeting properly. Even if we were not lacking a quarter of our number, I know that none of us will be able to focus after an interruption like that. Thus, I’ll read over Enjolras’s notes for today and address a few immediate subjects and then dismiss.” He pulled out a few sheets of paper and began looking over them. Around him, movement had returned. Bahorel and Feuilly were eyeing each other meaningfully and Joly and Bossuet were engaged in open dialogue with fluttering hands and expressive mouths, but no sound. “Grantaire,” Combeferre addressed him again, “you and Éponine may as well leave, this isn’t exactly going to be the best introductory meeting.” Éponine snorted, near the first sound she had made in all of this, and Grantaire rose from the chair. 

“Will you, um…” He reached into his bag, decimating Jehan’s careful work on his nails, and dug frantically for a pen and something to write on. He ended up ripping a piece from his sketchbook and scrawling with a broken stick of graphite. “Will you give this to… to Enjolras for me?”

Combeferre took the piece of paper and examined it. It bore a phone number, a frowny face and a question mark above his signature - but rather than his typical rebus of ‘R’, he had scribbled his surname in full. 

Combeferre looked at it gravely. In a low voice for Grantaire alone, he said to him: “You are a friend to me, Grantaire. But I hope you understand. I have known Enjolras since I was thirteen; with Courfeyrac, he is my dearest friend, second only in my life to my mother and father, and he has just looked at you and fled this room as though a beast was on his tail. You must have some thought as to what I am feeling.” 

“I do. Believe me, I do.” He cast a glance back to Éponine, who was standing with her arms folded, looking hard at the floorboards. “I can’t claim that I know… him… as well as you do, not anymore. But what I just saw, _that_ I know. That I understand, perhaps better than you do.” He couldn’t help but wonder how differently this might have gone had Éponine not been at his side - maybe no differently, no differently at all. “All I’m asking is that you give him the option. Give him this, my number. Combeferre…” He searched the man’s face, dark eyes meeting pale ones, and tried to find the right words, the most true, the most honest. 

Combeferre spoke first. “I will give it to him. But hear me, Grantaire. It is dire to say that I would kill for Enjolras; I’m not sure I would kill at all. But I love him as a brother, and I would do terrible things.”

He had offered on a silver platter the words that Grantaire needed. “I would kill for him,” he returned with heavy certainty, looking Combeferre dead on. 

Combeferre’s eyes widened, and then they softened. He lay a hand on Grantaire’s shoulder. “I will give him your number. Just know where my allegiance lies.” 

Grantaire nodded and gripped his bag. “In the same place that mine does, I imagine.” With that, he beckoned Éponine and they departed the bar together.  

\------------------------

“ _Shh, shh. It’s alright. I’ll get papa to drive me over right now if you need me there_.”

Enjolras was perched on his toilet seat with his knees drawn up to his chest, toes gripping the edge of the fuzzy red lid cover. In one hand he clutched his phone to his ear, listening to his sister’s lulling voice and only managing to sniffle in response. In his other hand he held a trembling glass of water. The orange pill bottle was discarded on the edge of the sink, childproof cap beside it, and at his feet the entire contents of his bag were dumped gracelessly on the tile. 

He was already beginning to calm down. His heart rate was settling, albeit slowly. He was keening on to the idea of living permanently in this bathroom; just locking the door, curling up in the tub and waiting there until he inevitably died of terror. At this point it seemed like a pretty appealing alternative to _leaving_ the bathroom and facing reality. 

The reality in which Grantaire and Éponine Thénardier were sitting at the Musain surrounded by all of his best friends who now knew that he was a big, lying, tra- Enjolras cut his thought short with a guttural shiver.

He could tell that the Xanax was working because the thought only made nausea lurch in his esophagus rather than making him want to slam his head into a wall. 

“You can come over,” he finally managed to rasp to Cosette, “but you’ll have to sit with me in the bathroom because I live here now.” 

Cosette laughed softly. Before she could reply, Enjolras heard a knocking at his front door. A strangled squawk wrenched from his throat involuntarily and he began breathing quickly, shallowly, oh fucking god, n-no no no no 

“ _Enjolras? Enjolras! I’m here, you’re okay, you’re okay_ -”

“Enjolras, it’s Courfeyrac! I’m gonna come in, okay?” Courfeyrac’s muffled voice was followed by the clicking of the door. Enjolras clutched his stomach in relief, trying so hard not to vomit. He tangled a fist in his own hair and then released, stroking gently.

“It’s Courfeyrac,” he said into the phone. “Courfeyrac’s here.” 

“ _Oh, good. Do you want me to stay on the phone? And do you want me to come over? I can spend the night, it’s no trouble_.”

“Yes, please, please come over, I need to see you. But you don’t have to stay on the phone. Courfeyrac’s here, I’ll go.”

“ _Okay. I’ll see you as soon as possible. I love you, Enjolras_.”

“Enjolras? Where are you? Are you hiding in the bathroom?”

“I love you too, Cosette. See you.”

The moment he hung up the phone, it came crashing back in again. He should be terrified of Courfeyrac, too - Courfeyrac had been there, Courfeyrac had been with Grantaire, surely he knew, he must be angry, everything was ruined - 

The bathroom door opened and Enjolras stared up at Courfeyrac, his jaw trembling. Courfeyrac’s eyes were round and wide and Enjolras couldn’t read them, couldn't guess what was hiding there, what anger or fear or disgust or betrayal… 

Courfeyrac lunged and Enjolras gasped sharply as he was swept up into an embrace. His body went rigid in Courfeyrac’s arms, trying to process. His toes could barely reach the tile floor for the way that Courfeyrac held him against his body.

After a moment that felt like eons, Courfeyrac released him and he fell back to his feet, swaying a little with the drug-induced dizziness. Courfeyrac was still close, touching him, gripping his shoulders and stroking his hair, looking him in the face in a way that did nothing to calm Enjolras’s nerves. 

“Say something…” Enjolras murmured, imploring him. 

“Right, right, sorry… Enjolras… What happened? Are you okay? Did he hurt you? He’s not… He isn’t the…?”

Enjolras furrowed his brow and shook his head. God damn it, this again. “No, this isn’t him.” He wished Courfeyrac and Combeferre would leave that alone. His breakdown last semester had been fucking humiliating, and the hasty assumptions of his best friends didn’t help then and they weren’t helping now. But he couldn’t find the words, couldn’t figure out how to explain what this _was_. He slumped back onto the toilet and a rush of dizziness came over him again. “Ugh… Courfeyrac, please, tell me what he said… Please tell me exactly what he said…” 

“What he… said? He didn’t really say anything… We asked if he knew you and he said you knew each other as kids. That’s all. And we asked his name, his first name, because we thought… Maybe...”

“I know what you thought. It’s not him.” Enjolras put his head in his hands, trying to breathe steadily. Could Courfeyrac really not know yet? How was that possible? Perhaps the conversation had managed somehow to sidestep pronouns or gender entirely, by some miracle… “And Éponine?”

Courfeyrac paused, looking slightly taken aback, but then he shrugged. “Éponine didn’t say anything at all. You know her too?”

“Of course I do, they both…” Enjolras stopped and sighed heavily. He wasn’t comfortable going into any of this. God, this all had opened such an ugly can of worms… His life had begun on Christmas Day of the year he turned 11, there was nothing before that but a dark void. This he had told himself so many times. Nothing left, all gone, just Ultime Fauchelevent and Cosette, walks in the Luxembourg gardens, the flower-covered cottages they had lived in together... Nothing before that had ever really happened. There was no red house in Montfermeil. There was no skeletal man or monstrous woman who lived there. There was no howling daughter, no venomous foster, no lightless attic room. No sea-eyed boy that he had left behind, who had watched him go, who had ever told him he was strong… 

“Enjolras, Enjolras! Breathe with me, stop that, breathe…” It wasn’t until Courfeyrac exclaimed thusly and gripped his wrists to keep him from tearing at his hair that he realized that he was struggling for air, ribs heaving quickly and erratically. “Okay, shh, that’s it. I’m sorry, we don’t have to talk about this now. Let me help you. You’ve already taken a Xanax, right?” 

Enjolras nodded. “Cosette’s coming,” he said weakly. 

“Good, good. Um, I’m sure Combeferre will come over a soon as possible too, but if that’s too many people I can tell him not too…”

“No, I want him. But just please try not to… crowd me.”

“Yeah, of course. Come here, let’s put something on the television. You’re gonna get pretty sleepy soon, right? We’ll put something calm on and wait for Cosette and Combeferre. You can just go to sleep.”

“It’s not even three…”

“You deserve a nap.” 

Enjolras allowed himself to be led out to the couch, where Courfeyrac began piling pillows and blankets on top of him. Enjolras didn’t even have to ask for Jean-Luc; his friend skipped up the open stairs to the loft where he slept and brought down the battered, faded, patch-winged old rooster from his bed. 

Nor did Courfeyrac need to be told what movie Enjolras wanted to watch. He clutched the rooster to his chest while his friend loaded the Aristocats into the DVD player and marvelled to himself that for all the things he chose to hide, Courfeyrac still knew so much. He knew Enjolras’s leaving-the-house list by heart. He knew his favorite calm-down movie, and hadn’t even needed to ask whether Enjolras wanted his silly old stuffed rooster. He knew to settle on the couch with a good distance between himself and the pillow pile that was Enjolras, to not be too close, but to clutch his hand in his for a comforting anchor. Maybe he didn’t know about the red house in Montfermeil; he didn’t know about the Thénardiers, and he didn’t know about the boy who’d first told him that he could uncorrupt the world; and God willing, he still didn’t know that he was transgender; but in this moment, he knew all the things that mattered.

\------------------------

 

“You haven’t said anything this whole walk,” Éponine commented quietly. 

Grantaire pulled the cigarette from between his lips  and exhaled a swirling cloud of smoke. “Neither’ve you,” he gruffed. 

Éponine sighed, taking a drag from her own cigarette. When she was done, she shrugged. “Let’s go get really fucking drunk. We’ll pregame at your place and then hit like, seven bars…”

The idea was more than appealing to Grantaire. The old É&R remedy to all problems too big to face. “We have work tonight. I think showing up to our jobs as youth dance instructors completely shit-faced might be grounds for an automatic firing.” 

“I know for a fact that you showed up at my old studio drunk three times and never got fired.”

“I was a teenage maintenance assistant… A fucking janitor, Ép, and nobody paid attention to me anyway… Somehow I don’t think you’re gonna get away with teaching ballet choreography to six-year-olds while hammered…” 

Éponine chuckled. “What am I though, if not self-sabotaging…” 

“We’re peas in a pod, believe me. But I actually like this job.”

“You just don’t want Miss golden-haired poly sci major,  leader-of-the-social-justice-club to know that the moment you saw her you got your broke, lazy ass shitfaced and fired.” 

Grantaire stopped walking. “You really are self-sabotaging, aren’t you?”

Éponine stopped and turned on him. “What’s your _damage_ , it’s just a _joke_ , I’m not really going to show up to work _drunk_.”

“First of all, I’m pretty sure that’s _Mister_ golden-haired poly-sci major. Second of all, good _god_ Éponine, fuck _off_ , what is YOUR damage? Do you hear yourself? You’re bitching and whimpering all the time about what a fucked up person you used to be, but what are you now? Angèle, or Enjolras or Mister Fucking Fantastic or whatever he _wants_ to be called, is _back_. You want to change your past? This is your chance.” 

Éponine turned away forcefully and walked on ahead of him. He jogged to catch up. “Forget this Grantaire. Look, you can go have your long-awaited romance with your childhood sweetheart, but I’m not getting involved. I don’t want to see _him_ again.”

Grantaire ignored the snipe, though it brought color to his cheeks. “You’re gonna avoid him? Like you avoided Combeferre? That’s going to work out just peachy, won’t it?”

Éponine whipped around once more and shoved him hard in the shoulder, red-faced and looking about to snap. “ _Have you picked the fucking song for our duet?!_ ”

He looked back at her grimly. “Fine. Ignore it all, avoid him and let it explode all over your face, and _keep_ being a piece of shit. _Stand By Me_. I found this really cool dark version online.”

“ _Great_ , you can play it for me when we get to the studio. When the kids are gone we’ll start choreographing.”   
  
\------------------------------  


“Should we wake him? He’ll ruin his sleep schedule…”

“Look at him though. He’s so precious like this. When we wake him up he’ll be all grumpy.”

Courfeyrac shifted in Combeferre’s lap, stretching over the arm of their shared armchair to grasp the remote from the hardwood floor and pause the ending credits of the Aristocats. Over on the couch Enjolras was sleeping soundly with his forehead nestled against Cosette’s shoulder. She was looking sideways down at him and smiling that fond smile of hers that could melt winter snow and bloom flowers. Her hands combed gently through his sleep-mussed hair. 

“Why don’t you order dinner from the Chinese place he likes. Cosette, would you wake him?” 

Courfeyrac disentangled himself from Combeferre and wandered off to a corner of the open room to make the call. Combeferre lifted himself from the chair, joints stiff and thighs aching from where they had sustained Courfeyrac, and made his way to sit by the twins on the edge of the glass coffee table. 

Cosette was crooning softly to her sleeping brother. She skimmed her milk-white hands over his cheek. Though he had none of his own, he doubted that all siblings were as close, and he doubted further that many people were so tender and loving as Cosette to their brothers or anyone else. It was clear how badly they needed each other and how much they missed one another though they still occupied the same city. Enjolras still called her almost every evening. He couldn’t say that he did the same even for his mother, despite her insistence. 

When Enjolras came to consciousness it was with a wild jerk and a gasping shout. Cosette was quick to hush him, holding him close and stroking him while his breaths evened out again. 

“Enjolras?” At the sound of his name the boy looked over at Combeferre. He grew steadier and calmer with every breath. 

“Hey,” Enjolras sighed. He reached out from his cocoon of blankets and the two men touched hands lightly. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. I led the meeting after you left, I figured that’s what you would have wanted. We ran through your notes together and I dismissed them early. Everything is fine and in order.”

Enjolras nodded. “What happened… after Courf left?”

“I told Grantaire and Éponine that they ought to go. Our brief meeting wasn’t going to be very interesting for them. So they went, and… Enjolras, I don’t know what experience you have had with them that made you feel the need to escape like that, and you can tell me if you’d like, but I won’t ask. I made very clear to Grantaire where my loyalties are, whatever I may have considered him or Éponine until now. Whatever you ask of me, I will do. I’m indubitably yours.”

Enjolras gripped Combeferre’s hand in his. “If you are mine, no man on earth has a better friend.” He gave a wan smile, and he turned to Cosette. The look they shared, as they always were, was unknowable. What passed between their eyes at such great length was for them alone, and they did not part gazes for a long time. At last Cosette pressed her lips to her twin brother’s forehead. 

“Enjolras,” Combeferre interjected, “if you would permit me to say so, Grantaire spoke as if you were close, or as if you once had been. It was clear from what he said that he believes himself… a friend to you. Even now.” 

Enjolras said nothing, but exchanged another look with Cosette. “And Éponine? What of her? She’s Feuilly’s roommate, isn’t she? You must know her, then, if you’ve been friends with Grantaire… Tell me about Éponine.” 

Combeferre faltered. He questioned how much to divulge - but for Enjolras, he knew he would hide nothing. “Éponine and I have known each other a while, actually. We dated in high school. I hope this doesn’t hurt you…” But he could tell by the way that the both of them turned identical blue eyes like headlights upon him that he’d stumbled over something dangerous. “It ended poorly. But I believe that she has grown. I know she suffers profound guilt, for more than our own follies of young infatuations. Perhaps in that guilt, she thinks of you as well?” He looked between the two of them, still staring, glaring. “...Should she?”

They both turned away instantly, and Enjolras raised his lowered gaze to Cosette’s flushing face. He placed his hand upon her cheek and the look that he gave her was recognizable this time - it was a fierce promise, like the way he looked at midnight when he and Combeferre and Courfeyrac had stayed up late together making such promises to the whole world, when Combeferre felt warm with pumping blood and love for humanity. The way he looked when they had conceived the _ABC_ \- the way he looked when he dreamed of a better world. With this devotion he looked at Cosette. 

“Do you trust her?”, he asked Combeferre, and turned those burning eyes on him again. 

Combeferre considered. He opened his mouth and closed it. Finally, he settled firmly on his answer. “I believe in her.” 

Enjolras’s lips parted. His gaze was hard and steely, and he started to speak - Combeferre could feel the fire in his tone before a finished word had left his mouth but Cosette silenced him with the press of her hand to his collarbone.

“Do you remember, Enjolras? You told it all to me.”

He looked at her. 

He looked with yearning, a lion turned in a single touch to a lamb in the way that only Cosette could evoke in him; and in that moment she was the very picture of the maiden and the madonna, of the stillness that calms the storms of men. In his life Combeferre had never imagined a pair that seemed so key to the salvation of the world. 

“He spoke of love,” she said.

“Printed on our slates,” he replied knowingly.  “But on hers, it has been blackened over. You would consider _forgiving_ her? _Éponine Th_ _é_ _nardier_?” 

“Your rage will level mountains, Enjolras, God gave you that gift. But my body has no place for anger. I wasn’t built for it like you were. I can only forgive her or be _afraid_ , and I will have no more of fear in me. I know your love is all red and black - but mine is white. Yes, I would choose forgiveness.” 

“What if she hasn’t changed?” Enjolras threw the blanket from his shoulders, clambering to his knees to look her in the face on her level. “What if she hurts you again?” They seemed to have forgotten Combeferre entirely, who was looking on in wonder.

Cosette clasped Enjolras’s face between her hands, affection and love glowing in her eyes. “You won’t let that happen.” 

He fell forward into her, embracing her and shaking his head furiously. She held him close and stroked her small hands over his back. 

“Aww,” Courfeyrac whispered close to Combeferre’s ear, making the man lurch in surprise.

“Christ, Courf.”

“Food is on its way,” he exclaimed proudly.

“Enjolras,” Combeferre requested the man’s attention again as he dug inside his back pocket, “Grantaire gave me his number to give to you.” He handed over the torn bit of paper. “It was very important to him that you get this.”

Enjolras took it and examined it with a heavy sigh. “Courfeyrac, would you mind getting my phone for me? It’s still in the bathroom, I think.”  
            “Roger.”   
  
\------------------------  


“Okay everyone, take five.” 

Grantaire practically ran for his locker in the staff room. He was dying for water. Éponine met him there, looking fresh as a daisy. 

“How’s the adult class going?” she smirked. 

“How are the kindergartners doing?” he returned. “Really working you hard, I’ll bet.”

While Éponine was solo-teaching the 5-7 ballet class, Grantaire had been brought on as an instructor’s assistant for adult hip hop. Multiple numbers were being given to a variety of arrangements of students for the upcoming Valentines show, so additional help organizing and instructing was required. In addition, Éponine had been offered a solo performance in the show - she’d quickly requested a duet instead, eager for the opportunity to perform with Grantaire. 

Now, Éponine snickered at Grantaire’s pain. He wished he had another beater to change into. After two hours of work, his current one was soaked. He dug inside his locker for his water bottle and his phone. 

Taking a deep swig, he noticed with surprise that he had two texts from an unknown number, received about an hour ago.

**[From: _(unknown number)_** **16:12]**  
>> _im called enjolras!_

**[From: _(unknown number)_** **16:12]**  
>> _!!!!!!!!!!_

Grantaire’s heart began to race wildly. It was her - it was _him_. After all these fucking years, it didn’t feel real now. This simple, confusing, charming pair of texts ought to have been accompanied by the trumpeted fanfare of heralds, by an orchestral swell, by cherry blossoms flying like in one of Jehan’s weird cartoons. He pushed the sweaty hair out of his eyes and typed back a response. 

**[From: _(unknown number)_** **17:04]**  
>> _… I’m called Grantaire!!!!!!  
_**[From: _(unknown number)_** **17:04]**  
>> !!!!!ii!!!!!!!i!!!i!!!!!

Immediately after hitting send, he regretted it. Would Enjolras think he was mocking him? Shit, that was such a bad first contact to receive… Fuck. Why couldn’t he _think_ before he wrote...  
            Thankfully the response was almost instantaneous.

**[From: _(unknown number)_** **17:05]**  
>> _no  
_

Grantaire laughed aloud, baffled. 

“Who are you texting?” Éponine inquired leaning over his shoulder. He batted her away as the follow up text came in.

**[From: _(unknown number)_** **17:05]**  
>> _i go by just enjolras now. those people have never heard me called /that name/ and they never should  
_**[From: _(unknown number)_** **17:05]**  
>> _please please please don’t ever use it again_

Grantaire responded easily. 

**[From: _(unknown number)_** **17:06]**  
>> _Ok. Are you trans?  
_

After waiting a moment and receiving no response, Grantaire shoved the phone back into his locker. Break was ending and this conversation would have to wait. But when he returned forty minutes later, this time forgoing his water bottle and reaching straight for the phone, there had still been no response. Grantaire felt his stomach clench. He quickly tapped out another text. 

**[From: _(unknown number)_** **17:48]**  
>> _It’s cool if you are!! Congrats. It’s all good. Just wanted to be certain what pronouns I should be using and all. He/him?? That’s what everyone else said  
_

The reply didn’t come until late that night, when Grantaire was at home crawling into bed beside an already-sleeping Jehan. He’d all but given up, figuring that the question had scared him off, or that somehow he was wrong, or that Enjolras hated him, or a million other terrible scenarios that might explain why Enjolras wasn’t responding, all of which amounted to Grantaire having ruined the shot that the universe had given him at a second chance. And though the replies finally did come, they did little to nothing to settle his worries.

**[From: _(unknown number)_** **22:24]**  
>> _yes  
_**[From: _(unknown number)_** **22:24]**  
>> _thank you_

_\-------_ \------------------ _\--------_

**[From: _(unknown number)_** **23:45]**  
>> _Bright as she may be, she still is cold. Good night, love. - C_

From where he rested in the dark beside Enjolras’s bed, Courfeyrac couldn’t help but notice the glowing of the sleeping man’s phone. He never meant to pry, but he was protective. It couldn’t be helped. The phone dimmed and darked again without him ever touching it but the message lingered in his mind. Rising and passing the bed, he cast an affectionate glance to the siblings huddled together in sleep beneath the blankets, tangled tight like they were sharing a twin sized mattress rather than a queen. He descended the stairs to join Combeferre out on the balcony. 

“He got another text from C.”

Combeferre huffed, spilling smoke from his nostrils. Courfeyrac slid the glass door shut, leaned back against the wrought iron railing and regarded his lover in the glow of his rare cigarette. “How are you doing?” he murmured, but the smoke cascading between his lips was answer enough.

Combeferre shrugged and looked down on the street, watching the cars pass by beneath the street lamps. 

“He got one this morning too, ‘Ferre. I didn’t have a chance to tell you. I mean, I don’t know for sure, but I saw him look at his phone and freeze up the way he does.” 

“Do you think he’ll ever tell us?”, Combeferre mused quietly.

“Tell us what? Who C is? What really happened that night last semester? Why he keeps all his fucking secrets? Or maybe who the hell Grantaire really is to him, or Éponine, what they _did_?”

“Don’t be that way, Courfeyrac.”

Courfeyrac turned over and folded his arms over the railing. He looked to the starless void above, muddled with light pollution. “I know. I try not to. But Combeferre, I trust the man with my life. I do. He’s my best friend, my brother, my fearless leader, but I’ve never met someone so…”

“...Private?”

Courfeyrac nodded. “He is the world to me. But he doesn’t trust me at all. We knew him five years online and he never even sent us a picture. And that night in November, he ran to your apartment, wouldn’t leave it for days, didn’t eat, didn’t sleep unless it was drug-induced, woke up gasping every twenty minutes when he did, we dropped everything to take care of him but he wouldn't even tell us what fucking _happened_ to him. This… this isn’t _normal_!”

Combeferre exhaled deeply and flicked the ashes from his cigarette. “Courfeyrac, you’re displacing again.”

Courfeyrac dropped his forehead to the railing. “Ugh. You’re right.”

“Do you want to try again?”

“Okay. Okay… I’m not really mad at Enjolras. I’m…” He thought for a long moment, trying to dig deeper than his surface frustration and blame. “I’m scared that he’s hurting and we can’t help him. And I’m scared that maybe Grantaire and Éponine aren’t good people and we won’t want to be friends with them when we know what happened. And I’m mad at myself that I keep snooping on these texts from this mysterious fucking ‘C’, even though Enjolras clearly doesn’t want us to know about them. And I feel hurt that he doesn’t trust us.”

Combeferre nodded. “I understand. And I’m with you.” He considered for a moment before continuing. “I don’t know about Éponine. But Grantaire… I spoke to him after you left. I said to him that I didn’t know if I would kill for Enjolras, but I’d do terrible things for him.”

Courfeyrac looked at him mournfully and nodded his agreement. 

“Grantaire replied that he would kill for him.”

Courfeyrac’s eyes widened. “Woah… He said that?”

Combeferre wrapped his lips around his cigarette again and pulled it away with a hazy grey sigh. “It’s hard to know what to read from all of this. Enjolras’s silence doesn’t help us. But it doesn’t have to. It only has to help him. I love him, and I will listen when he speaks, and I will trust him when he doesn’t.”

“How can you be so serene and wise, _abuelito_ …” 

Combeferre chuckled. “Come here, _cariño.”  
_

Courfeyrac gladly came close, putting his hands on his lover’s chest and leaning into him. Combeferre caught his lips in a kiss and rested his free hand on the back of the smaller man’s neck, drinking deep of the boy he loved, finding solace in his lips. 

“Mmm,” Courfeyrac hummed when they parted, “Like licking an ashtray.”

“Haha. Sorry.”

“I don’t mind. As long as this stays a stress thing and not an all-the-time thing. I dunno if I wanna lay in bed making out with a giant cigarette.” 

“Is that really what I taste like?”

“Yes. Yikes.”

Combeferre pouted, and then chuckled. “Speaking of snooping on texts… Have you checked your phone at all today?” 

Courfeyrac pulled his phone from his back pocket and unlocked the screen. “Double yikes…”

“Mm, I figured as much. Mine was similar. What’s the count?”

“One from Feuilly, three from Bahorel. _Twelve_ from Joly. Two from Bossuet telling me to answer Joly.” Courfeyrac paused, grinning wide. Warmth flooded to his cheeks.

“And?”

“And five from Jehan.” He opened these first. Only one was asking after Enjolras. His grin softened fondly as he read through the others. 

“Did they send you the picture?”

“The one of themself in the tub with a bubble beard?”

“Ha! No, I got one where they’d sculpted Éponine’s hair out of bubbles.” 

Courfeyrac snorted. “Do you think they send all their friends pictures of themself in the bath?”

“Well, yes actually, but I don’t think that answers the question you’re asking.” 

Courfeyrac’s smile faltered. “Does that bother you?” he asked after a moment. 

“What, their very obvious flirtation?”

Courfeyrac turned away, feeling uneasy.

“Or that you want to pursue it?”, Combeferre asked solemnly. Courfeyrac didn’t respond. He was still staring at Jehan’s texts, looking decidedly less happy than moments ago. “You could, you know. That’s why our relationship is open… Why we aren’t _boyfriends,_ despite popular belief…” It was Combeferre’s turn to look away. He quickly took another drag, wanting to fill his mouth with smoke before he could speak another word. 

Courfeyrac locked his phone and put it back in his pocket. “I love you, you know,” he mumbled. 

“I do know. I’ve known since the first time we ever fought.” 

“The first time we _fought_? Shit, how can you even remember that? That must have been years ago… What was it about?”

“It was three years ago. I don’t remember at all. The only thing I remember is wanting so badly to message you, to just pretend it had never happened, and not letting myself do so for _days_ … Well, it felt like days. It was probably more like six hours.” 

Courfeyrac smiled gently to himself. “How did you know that I loved you?” 

“After days or possibly hours of silence, you sent me a certain gif...”

“Angry moth noises!!” 

“That’s the one.”

Courfeyrac piled into Combeferre, wrapping his arms around him and burying his face in the man’s collar. “I do love you. I love you so much. I loved you then, and I loved you more every single day, and I love you now more than…” he paused.

“What,” Combeferre laughed softly, “more than cinnamon ice cream? More than watching cartoons in bed on Sunday mornings? More than lighting things on fire? More than _justice_?”

“More than anyone I’ve ever loved,” Courfeyrac whispered uncertainly. 

The laughter in the air faded. Combeferre breathed in shakily, and Courfeyrac pulled back to look at him, face flushed and nervous. 

Combeferre opened his mouth and closed it again. He bit down hard on his lip. 

“What are you thinking?” Courfeyrac was quivering. 

“I’m trying not to cry,” Combeferre admitted, “because you’ll make fun of me and call me a nerd…” 

Courfeyrac’s own eyes were wet as he fell back upon Combeferre smiling, returning to his embrace. “Nerd,” he said into his neck.

“I love you. _God_ , I love you. You make me question whether I’d _ever_ loved before you.” Combeferre buried the words in Courfeyrac’s hair. 

“Combeferre?”

“Mm?”

“I never slept with anyone else. Not since I’ve been here.”

“Really?”

“I never wanted to. I never could. I didn’t want any of them as much as I wanted you…”

“Not even Jehan?” 

Courfeyrac sighed. “I don’t want to think about Jehan. I won’t lie to you, I do _want_ Jehan. But I wish I didn’t. I just… I just want to be _yours_ , Combeferre… Is that… bad?”

Combeferre shook his head. “Of course it isn’t. What are you asking, Courfeyrac?”

“I want… I want to close our relationship. I want to be your boyfriend.”

Combeferre sucked in a breath. “You said you’d never done that before, never tried the exclusivity thing… Never even wanted to…”

“But you aren’t like any of those people that I’d played around with before. This feels bigger to me than any of those did, and I just need to make this _different_.” 

“Are you sure? You’re sure you want this with me?”

Courfeyrac looked him in the eye and nodded firmly, resolutely. “Do you?”

“ _Yes_. Yes, I do. More than anything.”

With no regard for the bitter taste of Combeferre’s lips, Courfeyrac surged to meet them and press himself as fully as he could to his lover, to his _boyfriend_. They lingered there a long time, pressed together in the corner of the balcony, Combeferre’s cigarette abandoned. When at last they drew apart their hair was mussed and their cheeks were burning despite the frigid chill of the night. 

“How fast asleep are Cosette and Enjolras, do you think,” Courfeyrac breathed. 

“We’re _not_ fornicating on his couch. We made a _rule_ , no sex at Enjolras’s place…” 

Courfeyrac leaned up and brought him into a kiss again, quickly disregarding his lips to nose behind his ear and mouth at his jaw. 

Combeferre whimpered. “M-maybe the bath…” 

“Mm, we can send Jehan pictures of our own…”

“ _Courfeyrac_!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Grantaire is talking about is here!  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dHFPeKUoP4


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If only polyamory were a thing :/ Too bad nobody has ever heard of that ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for non-explicit, implied sexual content; conflict, miscommunication; misgendering; jealousy

“He’d always send me snapchats from patrols, just shitty grainy things under streetlamps, but Jehan! They looked incredible, like something from a comic book. They wore _masks_ , they had improvised weapons, bats and things. I used to tell him he was nuts and it was going to get him killed but you know how he is, so fucking fearless, and I suppose it was plain then where he got it from. Leave it to _Courfeyracs_ to start their own family neighborhood watch when the law wasn’t enough. I’d love to meet them someday, Lucia and Carmen and the rest of his sisters. I’d like to meet any young women who respond to unaddressed local violence by starting a _girl gang_ , plus a little brother.”

“Truly, you can see how a boy raised with women like that went on to found an activist group at University.”

“Indeed. Though I can often tell that our brand of activism isn’t enough for him… Petitions and leaflet campaigns is hardly stimulating work for a boy who spent his high school career walking girls home through urban Barcelona at the witching hour with a bat and a can of mace. It’s not enough for Enjolras either, I can feel them getting restless, suggesting dire measures, projects that are out of our league, and sometimes I wonder if I don’t hold them back…”

“I think that you keep them from getting arrested, Combeferre.” Jehan’s foot brushed across the man’s jaw in a gesture that would have been reassuring and tender with a hand, but they were on opposite ends of Combeferre’s striped couch and Jehan’s hands were very much occupied with a mug of chai.

Combeferre chuckled and brushed Jehan’s foot away. It settled back down on the cushion where there legs had tangled together, rubbing bare ankles lightly in a way that made Combeferre ever so slightly dizzy.

Jehan had arrived when the day was still light. They came with a purpose, an armload of books both new and returning, but as it always was, the purpose was lost with the sun. Once again they were bundled together in the dim lamplight, hours whittled down to midnight, talking warmly about anything and everything. Jehan always seemed to bring the light with them and then kill it tenderly. The table lamp behind their hair lit them in a dusky glow, silverlined at the edges of their skin but shadowy elsewhere - they were radiant, and Combeferre could never bring himself to send them away into the night. Every parting with the friend seemed to leave goodbye kisses hanging in the air between them, kisses Combeferre felt _destined_ to steal, but he left them there hovering in the doorway and breathed them in when Jehan had left.

He could barely even bring himself to feel guilty. Had Courfeyrac been there, the flirt might have invited them to stay the night. He would have done so with a wink and his most dazzling and lecherous smile. For a moment Combeferre imagined them entwined, their rosy hair spilling over his chest, forehead pressed to Courfeyrac’s collarbone, the three of them together. It was a fantasy that came disturbingly often, but not half as often as the fantasy that the three of them might do more than sleep. Combeferre drowned the image before it could swell to fruition in his mind (and other places) with a hasty swig of his lukewarm tea. “Maybe you’re right,” he coughed as it nearly slid down the wrong pipe, “but I think I need to be more adventurous in any case. I came from such a safe and privileged upbringing… Courfeyrac did too, but he chose to abandon his safety to protect others anyway. And Enjolras…”

Jehan laughed softly. “If Enjolras was a Thenardier foster like Grantaire, his upbringing was anything but safe or privileged, whatever comforts he may enjoy now.”

“That… is the sense I’ve gotten.”

“How is he?”

“Enjolras? Better than Saturday, slowly better. He went to his classes today, he got decent sleep last night, only woke up twice. And he’s eating. I think he’s going to manage sleeping alone tonight.” The thought made him a little nervous. In November after the similar meltdown he’d stayed at Combeferre’s apartment for almost a week… He wanted to keep him close this time too, keep the boy under his wing and make sure he continued to be cared for, to be there for him if he started to panic again.

“Will we have a meeting this week?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“Well, he is ‘sick’ again.” As if their voice hadn’t been soaked with enough sarcasm, Jehan pulled air quotes on the operative phrase. Combeferre’s eyes widened and he sighed guiltily. “I may not be ace at knowing when I’m being lied to,” Jehan continued, “but you’re not exactly ace at lying.”

“Jehan, he _is_ sick. You’re right, he didn’t exactly have the flu last time, but he’s still sick, this is still -”

“You don’t have to tell me that Combeferre. I get ‘sick’ too. Grantaire does for me what you do for Enjolras. And I do it for Grantaire when he gets ‘sick’, and Joly gets ‘sick’ too, metaphorically as well as literally, and Bossuet and Feuilly and even Courfeyrac does, he told me so. So I don’t understand why you have to lie. Everyone knows he has quite terrible anxiety, Combeferre, and we love and trust him all the same. Why wouldn’t you just say that?”

“I told people what Enjolras wanted me to tell them.”

“He doesn’t trust us?”

“You’re hardly the only one with that complaint, Jehan, but I’d leave it alone if I were you.”

Jehan met his eyes, holding his gaze for a long time before they broke away with a huff. They set their mug down on a coaster on the coffee table and disentangled their legs from Combeferre’s, crossing the living room to where the piano stood before the dark windows. He watched the swaying curve of their spine, the pale skin between the bottom of their cropped mustard-yellow sweater and the top of their high rise jeans. Carefully they picked their way over the piano seat and settled down with their fingers on the keys.

“I used to play a little,” they said. “My mother taught me.” Their fingers clumsily tapped out hot cross buns. “That’s about all I remember now,” they chuckled lightly. “Do you play much?”

“Ahh, now and then. I used to practice every day like my mother was watching over my shoulder, but the piano is practically just ornamental now…”

“I’m sure you and Courfeyrac find other uses for it.” They threw a cheeky wink over their shoulder and Combeferre blushed. As a matter of fact, they had. Courfeyrac had wanted to know if he could still do his scales while he was otherwise… occupied. That had been a fun evening.

“The two of you are like a dream,” Jehan said, still tinkering on the piano.

“Oh?” Combeferre’s dark skin flushed further still.

“Thoughts pass through your eyes clearer than a conversation. You know his mind as thoroughly as you know his skin. I’ve never seen two halves that fit so perfectly, so intimately into a whole. You temper his wildness, he invigorates your gentleness, and you are so, so _proud_ of one another…Nor have I ever seen two such _beautiful_ people together. I envy your love beyond measure.”

Combeferre smiled warmly, remembering something. “He’s my boyfriend, you know.”

The piano abruptly quieted. “I didn’t mean it like that,” Jehan strained. “I know.”

“What? No, no, I meant… Well, we only just recently decided to close our relationship. On Saturday. He’s properly my boyfriend now. I wasn’t… accusing…” His voice faltered and trailed off. They’d ventured suddenly into a strange territory. Jehan did not react, and Combeferre made to call their name, but before he could, Jehan’s fingers crashed down upon the keys with a thunderous discordant noise. Combeferre jumped at the sudden clamour but it was silent again in a heartbeat.

“You said he was your boyfriend. Back when we first met. When I hit on you, you said you had a boyfriend.”

Combeferre’s mouth opened and closed. He swallowed dryly. “Oh… It… it was a mistake. Or… sort of… Our relationship was open, technically, I’d forgotten I said that… Shit.”

“You could just have said that you weren’t _interested_. That you didn’t _want me_ that way. I guess you’re a better liar than I give you credit for.” Jehan shoved back from the piano, clambering awkwardly over the bench backwards and swiveling to look Combeferre in the eyes, but where daggers might have been was only dead static. They said nothing more. Their lips were a tight line. Combeferre floundered.

“It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested, believe me, that wasn’t the problem! I just –"

“Don’t patronize me, Combeferre.” Jehan waved a hand through the air, tossing their head and looking around nervously. Their grim expression faded and was replaced with regret. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. You’re my friend, you’re both just my _friends_ and I know that. I’m sorry, I really am, I’m reacting to nothing, I’ll be fine and I’m sorry for being so… awkward.” They were sorting through books on the coffee table now, picking out the ones Combeferre was letting them borrow, and he realized they were preparing to leave.

Combeferre hastily set aside his mug and leaned forward. “Jehan, it isn’t _awkward_ , I…” But for all he wanted to keep Jehan here, what was there to end that sentence with? It _should_ be awkward. It should be painfully sad, all this unrequited… something. Combeferre drew a hand to his face, trying to make words happen, trying to make this better. But there were lines, lines of safety, lines of familiarity, lines carefully drawn between them, and anything he could think to say in this moment would stumble right over them.

With an armful of books Jehan fumbled the door open. “Good night Combeferre. I’m sorry, and thank you for these, I’ll take good care of them. I’m sorry.”

 

\-------------------------------------------

 

>> _Wanna go for coffee? Catch up?_

Too casual. This was a big fucking deal. This _was important._

_> > Hey, I know it’s been a long time… You’re probably nervous, what with Ep and all, but I’d really like_

What if it wasn’t a big fucking deal to him though? Good god, what if he hardly even remembered Grantaire? The kid was eleven when he saw him last!

>> _Hey, I know it’s been a long time, maybe you don’t even know who I am anymore… But I’ve missed you a lot, can we_

No, no, no. Too emotional, too much. That could be creepy.

Grantaire opened the emoji keyboard and smashed in a random mash of his most recently used. It conveyed about how he felt in that moment. A manic melee of emotions, plus an eggplant, a winged stack of American dollars, and Santa Claus. He cleared the typing field and sighed, shoving his phone into his back pocket.

Across from where he sat at the base of the steps in his studio, the painting was back on an easel. It had been shoved in the closet for a while, only mostly finished. He had been staring for a long time. It was all wrong now. He’d been wrong about the jut of the cheekbone. His jaw was smoother than that. His nose was small and straight – Grantaire had painted it too sharp, protruding too much. The curve of his eyelids was all fucked up. His hair was warm, honey blonde, streaked pale in places and bronze in others, it wasn’t this flat shade of lemon that Grantaire had spent so long mixing. The color of his eyes though, Grantaire had remembered well: cold and hot at once, lighter than he’d ever thought possible but vivid, too pale and clear to merely be blue, too heavenly to be grey.  That, at least, he could be proud of. For a few more hours before he burned the whole thing.

A knocking came from the first floor door, the one that led to the kitchen. “Come in,” Grantaire called thoughtlessly, still staring at his painting.

“Is that a painting of Cosette?”

_FUCK FUCKFUCKFUKCKFKUFK_

“What?!” Grantaire choked out, aiming for casual and time-buying so he could think of an explanation but hitting closer to frenzied, before realizing he’d already been given the perfect out. Jehan slinked in and settled beside him on the step, gazing at the painting.

“Yep, uh, yes. Yep. It’s Cosette, definitely… Cosette. It’s so funny, I started this a few months ago actually… Isn’t that odd? I started this painting, and here she is now… I mean, her brother. Is it just, uh, Enjolras here? Or is Cosette around too?” He was mentally kicking himself again and again.

“Oh yes, I’ve met her a few times. Like an angel in the flesh, isn’t she? Lovely thing, so kind and so _pure_ and so intelligent… Just like an Enjolras with the volume turned down.” Grantaire smiled broadly, panic fizzling off as Jehan seemed to buy the lie just fine. He felt flooded with this new information, and it made him giddy. Cosette, Cosette, the bruised little lark, she was here and she was kind, intelligent, pure…

“She lives here in Paris, still with their father. Enjolras graduated early, see.”

Grantaire nodded, enraptured.

“I almost think you’ve painted a better Enjolras though! A girlish Enjolras, to be sure, but I can’t see Cosette ever looking so… vicious! It hurts to look this painting in the eyes!”

Hoping the fragile cover held up, he shrugged and smiled. It _had_ hurt to look Cosette in the eyes, but for reasons starkly different… Those eyes had never had viciousness of their own, but they had known it. They had reflected as much as Enjolras’ had ever emitted.

“How was Combeferre’s?” Grantaire tried to steer the conversation away.

Jehan was quiet, and they seemed to deflate.

“That good, huh?”

They shrugged. Breath slumped out of their body and they leaned into Grantaire’s shoulder, nuzzling into his sweater. Grantaire wrapped an arm around their shoulders and nuzzled back.

“I’ve fucked up everything. It was a catastrophic disaster. He hates me and he will tell me never to see him again, ever, as long as we both shall live. I will absolutely die of sadness and heartbreak. I will _die_ , R.”

Grantaire chuckled. “Oh, I know the feeling.”  

Jehan pouted a little. “The plans for my funeral and wake are in the chest on the mantle. Please see that they are carried out in exact detail. Except, I came up with a new part and I haven’t updated it. Of the ten percent of my ashes that I have allotted to be spread upon the hills of Ireland, I would like to reallocate five percent to be blown directly into my father’s eyes.”

“I swear on my life, I will see it done.”

“Thank you R. You are a true friend.”

For a while they sat closely in silence. Grantaire looked over the painting. Children are naturally androgynous, and are divided ultimately by puberty, he thought. Angèle, that was to say, Enjolras, had been eleven when she, which was to say, _he_ , had left. He had still been skinny-legged, slim-hipped, sharp-shouldered… Though how much of that was simply malnutrition was hard to say. His hair was impossibly long then though, and so much silkier than it had been when Grantaire had first encountered him. That long fair hair had woven its way around Grantaire’s fingers many times, near as many times as it had drifted through his dreams in the years to come. He wondered how long it was now. He had only seen it tied away.

Grantaire had never thought of Angèle’s face as feminine – it had been so harsh, so severe. He had been many things, but never particularly… gendered. Can sylphs be gendered? Can spirits of the fire, creatures of embers and ash smoldering and trembling in his arms, be sexed? Cosette had been a little girl, and Enjolras had been a little flame. But here in this painting, sure enough, the child depicted was distinctly girlish in comparison to the hard young man that Grantaire had caught a fleeting glimpse of in the café. It had never really occurred to him except now by contrast. He supposed that that was good, though, that he hadn’t dwelled on his gender much before, as it would make it easier to delete the old information and install the new. In addition to being decently respectful it seemed pivotal to the potential of a new friendship between them.

“Do you love me?”

Jehan’s question caught Grantaire off guard. “You know that I do. Of course I love you.”

The answer didn’t seem to satisfy. They looked solemnly at the ground, head leaned against Grantaire’s shoulder, and clutched his bicep a little harder. “But not… Not the way Combeferre and Courfeyrac love each other, or the way Bahorel loves Feuilly.”

Grantaire wondered what had happened with Combeferre that had put Jehan in such a mood. “You don’t love me that way either, Jehan. But it doesn’t make it _less_ , does it?”

Jehan shrugged. “Why not? Why don’t we?”

“Who knows?” Grantaire shrugged, not sure how to answer. “It’s not as though love is tiered, with friendship at the bottom and romance at the top. Romantic love isn’t the greatest love you can achieve, it’s not the natural crux of any close relationship.”

“Romantic love is the only love you only give to _one person_. The only love that means you are the one adored _singularly_ well.”

Grantaire would laugh under any other circumstance, but the words were spoken too gravely to find amusement in their fault. “Bullshit. Firstly, there are plenty of polyamorous relationships where all partners are equally loved, and you know that damn well. Joly and Bossuet are after one at this very moment. Secondly, filling a ‘romantic partner’ slot does not _make_ you the most loved. Otherwise people wouldn’t cheat or break up, and sometimes people have friendships much more intimate and permanent than any romantic relationship they’ll ever have. Thirdly, that’s _rather_ rude to Feuilly, and every other aromantic person in the world, to imply that they will never be the most important person to anyone, or have a most important person themselves. Fourthly, and greatest of all in my opinion: The particular, peculiar things I feel for you, I cannot fathom I will ever feel for anyone else, in this life or the next. _You_ are my beloved, and our romantic partners will come and go, and we will love them and we will love them _differently_ , and perhaps we will find those that we do love forever as well. But you will always be uniquely important to me. Whatever exact, odd arrangement we are, you are the only one I will ever be _this_ with.”

Jehan was shaking softly, cheeks damp. Concerned, Grantaire held them closer and stroked through their long hair, dislodging the bun it was tangled in and combing it out with his fingers. He lightly rubbed Jehan’s scalp and neck with his fingertips. If Combeferre had said something callous or cruel to cause Jehan to feel so unwanted, Grantaire would be on his ass.

“I shouldn’t have broken the bottle, Grantaire,” Jehan mumbled out wetly.

Grantaire hummed a questioning sound into Jehan’s curls.

“I don’t want to be a person like that… I don’t want to be jealous, I don’t want to be mean…”

“Oh,” Grantaire breathed, recalling now the bottle that Jehan had hurled against the wall with Combeferre and Courfeyrac drawn upon it. “Jealousy isn’t evil, Jehan.”

“It is now. I have let it fester too long, R. I thought breaking the bottle would make it easier, but it never did, and I have still carried it inside me. I need to let it go, R. I need to move on.”

Grantaire nodded. “I understand. Let me know how I can help.”

Jehan sighed a heavy sigh and they nodded back, nuzzling more into Grantaire’s shoulder. “Are you going to come to another meeting?”

Grantaire bit his lip. He looked around the room uncertainly. “I dunno, Jehan. I mean… I guess it depends on whether Enjolras wants me there.”

“Why wouldn’t he?” The question was given slowly, and Grantaire understood the weight behind it. From what he had heard he had sent Enjolras into a veritable spiral of panic. Everyone wanted to know what Grantaire and/or Éponine had done that had caused such a thing, and Grantaire’s answers had been vague at best. The last thing he wanted was to overstep any boundaries concerning Enjolras’s gender – he had no idea who knew that Enjolras was trans and who didn’t. He knew that this was at least part of the reason for Enjolras’s fear, but didn’t think that he could explain that without potentially outing him. Furthermore, there were parts of Éponine’s past that she did not like to look back on. She had participated in abuse. She knew that clearly now, though she hadn’t then. Grantaire understood that Enjolras now had the power to strip nearly all of her friends from her, if he wished to campaign vocally against his abuser, and having seen it all himself Grantaire sincerely could not blame him. However these shadows may come into the light, it was not Grantaire’s right to bring them there, and so when questioned about all Enjolras’s panic Grantaire could only shrug and grunt noncommittally and promise that he cared for the man and meant him no harm.

Now with Jehan’s eyes upon him, Grantaire gave a weary shudder. “That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it?”

Jehan raised an eyebrow and did not look like they’d be pacified by such a non-answer. Grantaire had better solutions though to questions he didn’t want to respond to. He leaned down and kissed Jehan soundly on the mouth, firm at first and then gently. He wound a hand in Jehan’s hair again, pulling and caressing.

This was an answer Jehan would never refuse. Jehan accepted the change of topic and was pliant, lips yielding to Grantaire’s. Their eyes fluttered closed and they brought their hands up to rest lightly upon his shoulders. They kissed a long while, pressing into one another, pushing and sinking their weight into one another like the rhythm of waves tugging at the shore and descending upon it again. Grantaire was lost in the sweet taste of his beloved when they climbed carefully into his lap, straddling his thighs, and sighed into his mouth.  He hoped the ill evening with Combeferre would be forgotten. He hoped he could convince Jehan that they were wanted. He could try.

Pulling their hands through Grantaire’s dark hair, Jehan pulled their face away from his and looked him in the eyes, already looking prettier for being debauched. “Do you love me?” they asked, just as they had before.

“Yes, I do. I love you,” Grantaire whispered as Jehan sank their mouth upon his throat, sucking marks into the dark skin. Electricity crawled up and down Grantaire’s spine and he jerked his hips without thought.

“Do you love me?” Jehan repeated, pulling Grantaire’s collar aside to tongue at his collarbone.

“God, I love you. I love you endlessly,” Grantaire moaned. Jehan was sinking lower, too low past his collar to find skin, but they nuzzled his chest and stomach the whole way down as they sank between Grantaire’s legs.

“Do you love me?”

“I love your gorgeous mouth. I love your eyes, Jehan, the prettiest and sexiest eyes I have ever seen. I love your voice, I love your laugh, I love you when you’re sweet and I love you when you’re _wild_ , I love you when you’re raving and I love you when you’re angry and I love you when you’re so, so sad…” Jehan was pressing kisses into his trembling thighs. They cleanly popped the button of his jeans and slowly tugged, still keeping eye contact with Grantaire and smiling faintly now, and Grantaire squirmed under their attentions.

“Do you love me?” they whispered one last time before they could no longer speak.

“I do, I do, I love you, I fucking love, _fuck_ , I l-love you s-so much… _I love you_ , JEHAN!”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cosette and Enjolras chill together with stir fry, disney, and a hair curler and reflect on their precarious situation, past and present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter include:  
> Sexual harassment, mentions of medication, implied eating disorder, hospitalization mention, transphobia, discussion of genital preference, characters fighting, abuse-related PTSD implied, sex shaming (sort of), unhealthy age difference between partners

If she had asked, Enjolras would have told his twin that today was day five of the new apocalypse he lived in - day five since that burning seraph of infinite gray-green eyes had touched ground, day five since the sky had started spitting flame and the void threatened to swallow him into eternity. And Cosette, patient and loving and kind, would have entertained his religiously themed melodrama for a while before promising that the world outside his apartment was, in fact, still standing. Only privately would she have thought to herself that it may be no end of the world, but that it was indeed day five since the Second Coming, of sorts. If for Enjolras it was day five of recovering from being struck to the bone in a moment of breathless terror, for Cosette it was day five of biting down on a _desperate_ longing. But Cosette was patient if she was anything, and loving if she was anything, and kind if she was anything, and so she held her head high and ascended the winding stairs to Enjolras’s apartment with her resolve to put her brother first as strong as it ever was.

It was a necessary resolve indeed; by the humming and rhythmic thudding of the landing outside his locked door and the violent vocals muffled behind it, Cosette knew what sort of mood she would find her brother in on the other side. She clutched the strap of her schoolbag to her chest and heaved a heavy breath, steeling herself.

No amount of knocking was likely to be be heeded and so Cosette forewent the futile courtesy entirely. With a spare key she slipped past the door and into the spacious loft apartment, shutting the door quickly behind her so as to minimize the neighbour’s exposure to the delirious, throaty screaming that Enjolras accepted as therapeutic music. As expected Enjolras was in a rare way. The furniture had all been shoved against the walls, leaving the white hardwood floors bare. Enjolras was on his knees in dirty sweats and a ragged bandana abusing the floor with a scrub brush. His arms were flaming pink to the elbows. Only the most subtle of pauses in his scrubbing indicated that he had seen his sister come in at all.

Cosette waited for a moment to judge that her brother had no intention of stopping, and thusly concluded, she slipped out of her powder blue ballet flats and abandoned her bag against the wall. With a second scrub brush retrieved from the kitchenette she padded barefoot across to Enjolras, dropped to her hands and knees beside him, plunged the brush into a bucket of soapy water hot enough to scald (the point, she guessed) and joined him in his scouring.

They worked side by side in a deafening approximation of silence for a long while. Every few minutes, Enjolras would stop his work and fiddle with an ancient, scratched iPod (he had pulled out the best tech of 2007 to avoid his phone, she surmised) in order to ensure that the wailing of anarchists was never interrupted by lulling acoustic guitars or the insightful romance rhetoric of Taylor Swift. Having found a suitably terrifying song, he would return to his scrub brush and his slowly cooling bucket of water and continue scrubbing his brain by proxy of the floor. They went this way until they had covered the expanse of his open plan apartment, right up to the edges of the walls, and at last when Cosette’s knees were a familiar shade of violet and fuchsia they stopped and collapsed against the wall on opposite ends of the room. She watched her brother take a few deep, calming breaths before reaching inside the pocket of his sweats and turning the music off, leaving a sing-song ringing resounding in Cosette’s ears. They remained in silence.

“You were doing well,” Cosette said at last. Her voice echoed in the quiet apartment. “Super well. Back into routine and all. What happened?” _What happened to make you feel so unclean?,_ Cosette thought to herself.

Enjolras breathed a ragged sigh and fell over onto his knees, clambering unsteadily to his feet and trodding across the room to the fridge. He balanced on his toes to retrieve his phone from atop it, wandered back to Cosette and sat down heavily beside her. He passed the phone to her waiting hand and turned his face away.

It had been turned off, and took a few moments to wake up again. Cosette knew where to go; she opened his messages and looked for the unknown number.

**[From: _[unknown number]_ 14:03]**

>> _You looked beautiful on campus today. I seem to remember you filling out that scarlet top a little better though. -C_

“Oh, heaven have mercy… Enjolras…”

Enjolras didn’t say a word. Cosette looked at him, saw his face burning red.

“You can read the next one,” he whispered.

There were no texts following, not from C, so she went back to the messages screen and looked for the threads below - immediately beneath the first, there was another unknown number, and her stomach lurched.

**[From: _[unknown number]_ 11:38]**

>> _Hey, sorry about the delay on this, people said you were pretty upset?? I uh really hope you’re okay. I’d really like to see you if you want that?? Do you want to hang??_

“This is…”

“Grantaire.” Enjolras pronounced the name slowly; he seemed to study the taste, to feel out the way it hummed inside his mouth.

Cosette stared at the text. Cold chills welled up inside her. In all the years that had followed Grantaire, she had breathed in the scent of Gauloises on strangers that passed her, remembering the way his skin had smelled when he held her. Enjolras had cradled Grantaire in his heart in ways he’d hoped she didn’t know, but Cosette had carried him too. Grantaire had loved them. Grantaire had been the first. Cosette understood how much her brother had at stake here, she understood all his fears, but she would give anything to let Grantaire know: I am here, I am here too, I want to see you, I love you still, and I am not afraid! But Cosette was patient, and she was loving, and she was kind, and she would always put her brother first.

“Will you respond?”

Enjolras shrugged. “I’ve tried. I can’t. I don’t know how. I’ve written fifty different responses and they all scare me and I can’t write them anymore.”

Cosette nodded sympathetically. She looked back at the text, studying it, and went to flip back to the message from C, but another caught her eye. “Who is Casanova?”

Enjolras looked up, blinking. “An… 18th century Italian writer, renowned for his affairs with women?”

“No, with the sunglasses and the nail painting emoji.”

“Oh. Courfeyrac edited his contact the last time I left my phone unattended...”

“You know you can fix that, right?”

“I know who it is, that’s all that matters.”

“Why did he send you so many crying emojis…?”

A barely visible smile passed across Enjolras’s face. “You can look.”

 **[From: _Casanova_ X X** **** **17:23]**

>> _You know what would cheer you up? A PARTY!_

**[From: _EnjolYASSS_ 17:24]**

>> _literally not true at all_

_> > that is the opposite of a true statement_

_> > you might even call it an untruth_

**[From: _Casanova **X X**_** **** **17:24]**

>> _Okay that’s fair but MY ROOMMATE IS TURNING 19 IN TWO WEEKS AND HE HAS LITERALLY NEVER HAD A BIRTHDAY PARTY IN HIS LIFE. WHAT THE FUCK ENJ. WTF THE FUCK!!!!!! [image attached]_

**[From: _EnjolYASSS_ 16:25]**

>> _why… why are you asking my permission to throw a party_

>> _does your roommate know you took that photo of him because it doesn’t look like he does_

 **[From: _Casanova **X X**_** **16:25]**

>> _BUT I DREW A PARTY HAT ON HIM, LOOK HOW GOOD IT WOULD LOOK ON HIM_

>> _and because everyone i know lives in a teeny apartment aaaaaaand…_

**[From: _EnjolYASSS_ 16:25]**

>> _...and you want to throw it at my father’s house._

 **[From: _Casanova **X X**_** **16:26]**

>> _i will literally suck your dick if you let me do this. your whole dick._

 **[From: _Casanova **X X**_** **16:26]**

>> _you don’t have to do jack shit. i’ll set up. i’ll host. i’ll clean. fuck, you don’t even have to SHOW UP, tho that would be kind of weird._

**[From: _EnjolYASSS_ 16:27]**

>> _just a little._

 **[From: _Casanova **X X**_** **16:27]**

>> ;O;O;O;O;O;O;O; 

“That’s…”

“Ridiculous, right? He wants to use papa’s house to throw a party for some guy I don’t even know. The roommate whose _dog_ has taken up residence on Combeferre’s ottoman for 20 hours of the day.”

“Well, that’s not what I was going to say.”

Enjolras looked at her questioningly.

“I was going to say, that’s a very handsome roommate…” Cosette giggled and blushed, hiding her face behind the phone.

“Please, Cosette, this is not a time for your embarrassing heterosexuality…” Cosette tapped Enjolras playfully on the shoulder with an expression of mock offense and Enjolras chuckled lightly.

“I could run to Courfeyrac’s dorm this very second and fall on my knees in front of this stranger and you still wouldn’t have room to criticize my choices when it comes to matters of _love_ ,” Cosette retorted.

Enjolras smiled to himself. Only Cosette could pass off a joke like that without stinging him to the core. “I sure do know how to pick ‘em, no doubt.” He sighed. “But running over there and throwing your Maybelline mouth at the groin of this… skinny, unkempt... tube of mayonnaise… would still be a better way to meet him than letting Courfeyrac throw a party at our home.”

“Maybe I _like_ mayonnaise. Anyway, Papa wouldn’t mind. He adores Courfeyrac, you know, and since I’m moving out in the fall Papa’s been saying he needs to fill the house with little feet again, and I’m not sure he’s completely joking. Who better for him to adopt than your merry crew?”

“I’ll swing by an orphanage and bring him a basket of babies.”

“You don’t think Courfeyrac can throw a responsible party and clean up after himself?”

“I mean? I do? But… are you really considering this? Would you co-host with him so that I don’t have to?”

“I’m with Courfeyrac, you don’t even have to _go_.”

“Fine then, carry on, by all means…” Enjolras waved a hand dismissively.

With a delighted squeak, Cosette took up the phone again and began rapidly firing out texts in Enjolras’s name.

**[From: _EnjolYASSS_ 17:31]**

>> _I am not going to cohost this party. Sorry._

>> _but wouldn’t it be convenient if there were some kind of *second me* who was infinitely more sociable and thought parties were magical fun… some kind of… extroverted, prettier, totally single and available clone of myself…_

>> _someone who even currently lives at the house you want to occupy…_

>> _oh wait_

>> _i think that’s a real thing and her name is euph-_

Before Cosette could finish typing the final message, she was interrupted by a response.

 **[From: _Casanova X X_** **17:31]**

>> _COSETTE U PRINCESS OF MY HEART_

>> _Shoot me a selfie, I’ll hook u up bb ;)_

Cosette lined up her best glittering-eyed doll face, complete with endearing peace sign, adjusted her position for optimal lighting (honestly, Enjolras’s spacious, wide-windowed apartment was a selfie dream house) and sent the snap off to Courfeyrac.

Enjolras peered over her shoulder to examine the conversation. “Tsk, unnecessary. Unnecessary.”

“Well _excuuuse_ me, didn’t realize I needed your permission to flirt, _big bro_.”

Enjolras landed a finger on the screen, scrolling up and hitting a line. “No, that. You are _not_ prettier than me.”

“Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful, dear. Glad to see you’re in a better mood though. Now, I’ve a few questions for you.”

Enjolras slumped dramatically against the wall with a grand sigh. “Shoot.”

“Taken your medicine today?”

“Yes.”

“Have you eaten?”

With another, grander sigh, he managed to slide even further down the wall. “ _No_.”

“Enj, don’t take your pills on an empty stomach, you know how sick it makes you. Will you?”

Enjolras threw his arms over his face and groaned, muttering something incoherent.

Cosette reached to run a hand over his cheek. “If I make us some stir fry and put on a DVD, will you eat it with me? I brought some _stuff_ over,” she proffered with a grin.

Redfaced but without a word, Enjolras brought himself shakily to his feet again and set himself about the task of dragging his furniture back from the walls to the carefully planned arrangement of before. Cosette interpreted the gesture easily as flustered but resigned acceptance, and she went to make dinner for the both of them.   

Keeping his phone on the counter beside her as she worked over the stovetop, Cosette couldn’t help but flip between those two unknown numbers again and reread the pair of foreboding messages. Enjolras’s love life had always been a mess and a half, she thought, although he never would have called it such - his “love life”, that was. He knew quite well what a wreck his affairs were, but he would never have called them matters of love. And Cosette had her suspicions, of course, her unwavering beliefs in fate and faithfulness, her trust in the stars, which all led her to a clear conclusion: that when you have found the other half of your heart there is no substitute on earth that could suffice. Her brother had been cursed to have loved and lost in the wee hours of his life. All that had come after, those few fumbling attempts to fit two bodies together in imperfect ways, they had all been the flickering of stars in the wake of a great and inimitable sunset.

But the dawn had _come_.

Against all odds, when the night was blackest and the heavens glimmered at their most dim, the sun was rising, and Cosette wondered if such brilliant light as she recalled could vanish the terrors of the night as they once had. She wondered, too, how long it would take for Enjolras to open his stubborn and unseeing eyes, held shut so tightly in their fear of the dark.

When dinner had been served Cosette settled on the couch with an organized clutter of items around her seat. The television remote and her plate of food were balanced on the cushions on her left. To her right, a hair straightener, a curler, a wide-toothed plastic comb, a soft-bristle brush whose white porcelain back was adorned with painted pink carnations and forget-me-nots, and a box of various hairpins. On the floor between her knees sat Enjolras; he pulled the ragged grey bandana down from his hair and shook out his blonde curls, waiting for Cosette’s attention. Enjolras would joke about Cosette coming over to use him like a Barbie Deluxe Styling Head, but only to save face. Cosette knew better. There was no faster way to bring him to calmness than this. And these days – always, but especially in light of recent and ongoing events – he deserved that calm.

Cosette hit play on Disney’s _Sleeping Beauty_ and took her brother’s hair in her hands. Enjolras relaxed visibly, melting against the couch, concentrating on the figures on the screen and the swelling music while Cosette threaded her fingers through his hair. She took hold of the porcelain brush to smooth it out. She remembered when he had cut it all off for the first time, all three and a half gorgeous feet of cascading gold. Two hairdressers had outright refused him until he’d gone home, chopped it off himself and made a third fix it for him from there. (God how he had fumed, had ranted in the bathroom with scissors in his hand, yelling about how he wasn’t _fucking_ public property, how dare they presume to have more authority over his body than he did! All his _fucking_ life, like there was a god damn public vote on the decisions he was allowed to make about his own damn _hair_ and _makeup_ and _waistline_ and _shoes_ and _tits_!) When he’d hacked the last of it off he’d cried, running his fingers against the soft bristles on either side of his head, pulling at the tousled top. She’d been beside him, feeling it too, and feeling the grief and loss that radiated from him in waves, all the anguish and the need. His cheeks had been colored violent red. _My brother, my brother, my brother_ , Cosette had recited to herself, making herself feel it and remember. She would be patient and kind and loving, and she would always put her _brother_ first. And when his eyes and his throat were dry he’d pulled his binder on over his fragile ribs and said that he felt whole for the first time in his life.

Cosette separated out the strands, pinning and twisting as she went, planned here and aimless there. He had grown it out, of course. Let it curl over his ears, graze his chin, tumble down his neck and along his collarbones the way it did now. But that had been _his_ decision, and that’s what mattered. Enjolras had hollowed his body out in a flaming rage back then. Had destroyed parts of himself that he _loved_ in order to prove that he owned himself; in order to prove who he really was. He’d been a wreck. A bony, shaven, bruise-kneed wreck putting on a clumsy but angry drag show of masculinity. People had been disturbed to say the least, even _scared_ of him, to watch their idol Aphrodite shave her head and present in the guise of ugly Hephaestus. Cosette had been scared _for_ him. But it seemed to her now in the crystal vision of retrospect that he had succeeded in something very important: He had burned away all that was dead and dying, all that was choking the life out of him, had shoved away the idolaters who worshipped him and made himself something utterly untouchable; and it was only for all of that destruction that in the skeletal black wasteland of an old self he had been able to flower again.

“Turn your head, dear,” Cosette murmured, guiding his chin with her fingers. His eyes met hers for an instant and flicked back to the TV screen.

The damage of it all had been tolerable to witness in the wake of all that had come before. Enjolras first coming out to her ( _silver eyes wet, hospital lights buzzing, trying to settle him so that he wouldn’t tear his IV out with throwing his frail self around)_  had made sense of months, maybe years of growing disconnection. The two of them had shared a heartbeat once. Even when skin closed over their bodies and separated one from the other in the water of the womb, Cosette wasn’t sure that they didn’t still breathe in tandem; were there cells in the core of her nervous system that had once been Enjolras’s? Had there been a very consciousness formed in union and split by biology? If they had once been one being, one cluster of cells grasping at life, could they not have once been one soul? And where in all of that had their souls separated definitely? Because a time had come, when the Thenardier home was far behind them, that Cosette had _felt_ that disengagement forge itself. She had felt his confusion, his unhappiness, the wandering of his faith, wandering far from her, and she had felt empty and cold and lonely in his absence from her heart. And when Enjolras had come out to her at last Cosette could not bring herself to bewilderment nor disbelief nor loss. She could only process the overwhelming relief that she could _feel_ her twin again, whether sister or brother.

“You unsubtle traitor. You did this on purpose.” Enjolras spoke dryly over the music of the movie and Cosette was broken from her thoughts.

“Hmm?”

Enjolras indicated the television, and Cosette took a moment to process the scene before she fell into giggles.

 _“I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream,”_ Aurora sang, twirling barefoot between medieval-tapestry-trees, tossing hair not unlike Enjolras’s.

Cosette dropped her pins and threw her arms around her brother’s shoulders. “I know you, that look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam,” she sang along. “And I know it’s true that visions are seldom all they seem…” Enjolras harrumphed, making a show of covering his ears and tuning her out. “But if I know you,” she pulled a hand away from his ear and sang into it, “I know what you’ll do… _You’ll love me at once the way you did once upon a dream_.”

“ _I brought a DVD_ , she says. _It’s not a manipulation tactic at all_ , she says.”

“I made _no_ such promises, I am certain.”

Enjolras batted her away and she grabbed his hair once again, not at all gently, resuming her braiding and careful pinning. “Oh boo _hoo_ , Enjolras. Answer his text, and what’s the worst thing that happens?”

“The very worst thing?”

“Yes, I must know. List every awful disaster. Let’s sort through all the muck.”

“He outs me to all of my friends and they all _hate_ me. They’re enraged that I’m a liar. Combeferre and Courfeyrac feel _betrayed_. They never see me as a man again; they never even pretend; they mock me. Eponine laughs maniacally from their arms. They all know that she’s an abuser and they don’t care. She tells her parents where we are and they come steal all our money and maybe beat us while they’re at it, and… and _he_ finds me, finds Grantaire and makes him _hate_ me, then he claims me for himself and… and I don’t know. Probably dresses me up as a girl, murders me, defiles my corpse and takes photos.”

Cosette fought back bemused laughter. She grasped for a way to respectfully respond to the wild tales that her brother’s anxiety could spin. “Do you really think that _C_ ,” she spoke the alias with dripping disdain, “is inclined to that kind of serial-killer-level brutality?”

“Well, when I was with him, I didn’t think he was a man inclined to _stalking_ either.”

Cosette sighed heavily and laid her forehead down against his crown. “You’ve got a hell of a taste, _ange_.”

“Honestly. I can count all the people I’ve been attracted to in my entire life on one hand, and they amount to: one, a creepy, possessive transphobe, two, a _violent_ transphobe, and now, three… well, a saint of a man, but tragically inaccessible.”

“You never know on that last one, Enjolras. Feuilly might not mind after all, you know?”

“God, leave it alone. It’s not a risk worth taking in any case.”

Cosette sat back unhappily. Enjolras could be so damn irrational, and she knew that it was absolutely not his fault, would never blame him – but he held himself back from _beautiful_ things, for the terror of shadows. Pinning a braid in place, she reached for the curler and combed out a long lock to wind around it.

“Seems as though someone’s missing from that list.”

Enjolras huffed. He seemed to consider feigning ignorance, but that had always been futile between them. “I was a child. Grantaire was… He doesn’t count.”

“Ha. A child, sure. A child with a hell of a crush, maybe. But we can pretend that children have no attractions. What of when you _saw_ him, Enjolras? You’re not a child now, certainly, and neither is he…”

Enjolras shrugged hard, palms up, his shoulders jostling her hands.

“ _Enjolras_ , you’ll burn yourself on this _hot iron_ , fake your apathy a little less dramatically.”

“What! I got a glance through a crowd, Cosette, nothing more, and it was rather colored by his companion, and the ensuing _panic attack_ …”

Cosette raised an eyebrow in doubt. She yanked roughly at a curl on the nape of his neck, winding it around the curler, waiting.

“…He had a beard.”

A hand flew to Cosette’s mouth, concealing her bursting grin. A beard, she thought, trying to imagine it. “A beard like, a hairy mountain man who listens to Bon Iver and drinks homebrewed mead? Or like, sensitive artful movie star stubble…”

Enjolras brought a hand to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. “The sensitive artful movie star stubble of a hairy mountain man who listens to Bon Iver and drinks homebrewed mead.”

“I can picture it perfectly…”

“His hair was long.”

“Ooh!”

“Longer than his chin, but not to his shoulders like mine… It was a little hard to tell, it was a mess.”

“And I take it he wasn’t a skinny, unkempt tube of mayonnaise.”

“Unkempt, maybe. Skinny, no.” Cosette could hardly see it but she could _feel_ Enjolras’s small smile. “And far from mayonnaise, for sure.”

“You’re a damn liar, Enjolras, you _are_ attracted to him. You think Grantaire is a _fox_.”

Enjolras scoffed, and then again, searching for a retort with the shivers of restrained laughter. “Ridiculous!” he exclaimed. “ _I_ am a fox. Grantaire is like… a bear, maybe.”

Cosette laughed warmly. Tension she didn’t know she’d been carrying all this time bled from her shoulders. Her brother was drifting away from his state of panic and upset; not just today’s, but the week’s in general; he was joking about Grantaire, speaking lightly, finally finding his stride again after the hurricane of his arrival. It was a relief to be reassured that she could step into the center of Enjolras’s storm and find calm with him again; that had not always been a certainty.  

“A _bear_ , you say… Sounds like good news for you.”

“Hardly. He could be another Feuilly.”

“Another _hypothetical, imaginary,_ V-hating Feuilly. Schroedinger’s transphobe. And if he’s straight?”

“ _God_ , that would be worse…”

“Mm. I suppose you’ll have to pray he’s open-minded.”

“I’ll pray for nothing. This is ridiculous, Cosette, this is a fantasy. I don’t know this man. I knew a fifteen-year-old. Think about the changes _I’ve_ gone through in the last six years. This is a stranger, and I’d rather be cautious.”

“Oh, Enjolras.” Cosette sighed, resting her elbows on her knees and hanging above Enjolras’s head. He tipped backwards and strained his neck to meet her eyes questioningly. “When have you _ever_ been cautious?”

“And when have you _ever_ encouraged my recklessness?”

\--------------------------------

From her bedroom window Cosette had watched the sun settle below the black branches of the trees, dragging golden light and rose and lilac stains behind it till the air was bled through with twilight’s blue.

She could pass hours like this with arms folded around her knees as she looked out through the wisteria over her window at the tangled garden that she and Papa worked to tame.

Her twin was never content with stillness, always in a race to keep a step ahead of the demons clawing after ruby high heels; every idle moment was an opportunity for darkness to seep inside and fill the emptiness. And certainly, Cosette had her fair share of those days. But peace, on the whole, was safe for her. Even after these few years it still relieved her to be calm for a while and know that it was enough to simply exist; it was enough that in spite of everything, she was here.

After all, better to savor the calm. All stillness would eventually be broken. Tonight it ended with the cracking of the door as Angèle slipped inside and made straight for Cosette’s dresser, pulling open the top drawer and digging her hands in without a word.

“You know, I think sharing underwear is pushing it, even for twins. Even for us.”

“You have pretty things and I don’t.” Angèle had come straight from the shower; a towel wrapped her hair and a large old gray shirt hung from her bony shoulders, falling to the tops of skinny thighs. Her legs were fresh-shaven and lotioned from the look of it.

“I seem to recall you chiding me for buying pretty things. _Cosette, no one will see them, Cosette, what’s the point…_ ”

“Yes, well, now someone will see them.” Angèle pulled out a pair of pink polka-dotted high cut briefs, examining them with distaste before tossing them back in.

Cosette narrowed her eyes. “ _No_ ,” she hissed with disbelief.

“Yes.” Angèle paused to look up at her sister, a cutting defiance in her eyes which faded quickly under Cosette’s gaze into something that could almost be called guilt. Cosette held it until it was painful. She turned her head away to stare back out the window.

“I’m worried about you, Ange,” she said to the cool panes.

Angèle was quiet for a moment, and her response burst with bottled up ferocity. “I’ve been taking it from you for so long Cosette, all this _matchmaking_ and dates you set up behind my back and this insistence that I could have anyone, as though I _wanted_ anyone, and now that there’s someone I actually _do want_ , you’re ‘ _worried’_. You’re really going to give me shit for the first desire I’ve _ever_ felt, after all of _that_?”

Cosette felt her heart race as Angèle’s anger poisoned the air. Something cold and watery welled up inside her chest. “Don’t go _off_ on me, Ange. I love you. I’m just scared that you…”

“You hate him. I know that you hate him. I don’t. Cosette I’ve never met someone so… witty, so fast, so _on my level_ , please stop _criticizing_ me for this!”

Cosette shivered, pulling her knees in tighter. “He’s ‘on your level’ because he’s _years_ older than you.”

“Don’t be dramatic. You make it sound like he’s thirty-five, he’s not even twenty.” She handled a pair of lacy white boyshorts, examining them. “Probably,” she added under her breath.

“Do you love him?” Cosette asked, turning to look her sister in the face, eyes wide, almost hopeful.

Angèle dropped her arms to her sides with the underwear balled in her hand, leaning on one hip. “Does it matter? It’s just sex.”

The bluntness stung Cosette; the plainness of her sister’s intentions. “You say that like you _know_.”

“I don’t need personal experience to know that people fuck people they don’t love all the time and they’re _just fine_.”

Cosette turned back to the window, leaning her head against the glass wearily. “Our mother did,” she whispered bitterly, “and look where it got her.”

At first there was only silence, and Cosette was scared to look, prayed perhaps that her callous little outburst had gone unheard.

“ _Our mother fucked someone she DID love_ ,” Angèle shouted, slamming the drawer shut with a crash and causing Cosette to jump with a pained gasp and cover her ears, “ _and look where it got her_!” She turned and stormed away across the room, throwing the bedroom door open.

“You’re an extra small!” Cosette squeaked, and Angèle stopped in her tracks. “I’m a small. You’re an extra small now.” When Angèle didn’t respond, she continued on quietly. “They’ll be loose on you. You’d look nicer in something that fits…” Her voice trailed off, hesitant and fearful.

“Thanks for the advice,” Angèle sighed, and closed the door behind her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So like I guess this is an AU where Jean Valjean knew Fantine slightly more closely than in brick/musical canon, and was able to give the twins some information about her.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jehan spends some time at Combeferre's apartment, and even after she leaves, her presence lingers like a voyeuristic ghost...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!! My genderfluid child Jehan is a lovely baby girl in this chapter. She established this with Courf when she came over and 'Ferre picks up the cue. Enjoy this chapter of my sweet daughter Jehan Prouvaire
> 
> Warnings for the chapter include: SEX, eyyyy. Alcohol and drug use (pot). Miscommunication. Polyamory-related angst and self-hate. Courf being self-loathing and sad.

“Okay okay okay. Never have I ever… Hit someone. Wait! That’s a lie. Okay um, never have I ever hit someone with a _weapon_. Yeah.” Jehan giggled to herself and watched the stars popping before her eyes. “That’s silly, oh my god, you’ve never tickled a fly.”

Courfeyrac shook his head, sweeping his dark curls along Combeferre’s dusty carpet. “Have done so, yes I have,” and he took a swig of his beer, snorting and wheezing as a good bit of it drizzled up his nose. From the position of the pair of them, hanging upside down over the edge of Combeferre’s couch, their drinking game had resulted in a lot more beer winding up on their faces, clothes, and the carpet under their heads than actually down their throats.

“You’ve tickled a fly?! How did you get it to stay still?” Jehan swivelled her head hard enough to hurt her neck atop the pile of her strawberry hair. They looked at Courfeyrac with an expression of utter awe, and Courfeyrac laughed loud and strong, his belly aching from their antics already. Napoleon gave a nervous ruff from his armchair, disturbed by the noise, and toppled unevenly from the cushion onto the carpet to waddle over and investigate.

“Have done so hit someone with a weapon! Pass that over here.”

Jehan forfeited the joint hanging idly between her fingers to Courfeyrac and hummed to herself as Napoleon lapped his tongue over her face. “Well, _monsieur Smokey l’ours_ , are you going to tell me about it? These brave, weapon-using antics? Oh! That must have been what Combeferre told me about, your vigilante days in Barcelona...”

“He told you?! _Connard_! That’s like, level 15 friendship… At _least_...”

“Pooh! I am at _least_ level 20. It’s your turn.”

“Alright, alright. Never have I ever… worn a skirt in bed!”

“Like _pajamas_? Like a nightgown? I have a whole bunch, you should come over and try some on, you’d look dazzling…”

“Like for _sex,_ you adorable bumblebee.”

“Never have I ever… Tickled a bumblebee…” Jehan burst into airy giggles.

“ _But have you worn a skirt in bed_?” Courfeyrac rolled over vigorously and Jehan shrieked with laughter and pushed him away, but fell over herself and ended up in a laughing pile on the carpet with a very upset corgi tangled in her legs.

“Look, Courfeyrac, I’ve saved the beer, it didn’t spill...”

“You’ve been fucked in a skirt, you evasive little poof, take a drink of the beer you didn’t spill!”

Jehan could barely stop laughing long enough to do so, and when she was done she made grabby hands for the joint that Courfeyrac still possessed, which Courfeyrac passed back with a dramatic, cloudy sigh.  “Put the dog away, this can’t be good for him.”

Jehan turned seriously to face the distraught dog. “Go away Napoleon,” she whispered, and he cocked his head curiously and sat his furry bum down on the carpet resolutely. “Well that’s that, Courfeyrac. The dog knows where he wants to be. I will puff in the other direction. Now! Never have I ever…” Jehan contemplated, trying to think of all the things she hadn’t done, which was a rather short list now that her mind was on kinks and other bedroom fun. “Ever ever ever… Ever...”

“Out with it! Out with it!”

“I’ve done everything, Courfeyrac! Everything in the whole wide world!”

Courfeyrac gracelessly flopped down onto the floor (tipping over three empty beer bottles in the process), rolled over onto his belly and crawled so that he loomed upside down over Jehan’s face. Jehan reddened and smiled, taking a drag from the joint and blowing smoke back into Courfeyrac’s face. “Never have I ever not been a GAY MOTHERFUCKER.”

“That’s grammatically delirious. And also a lie. You’re as pansexual as I am.”

“Woe is me. You’re right. Fuck kitchenware all day. Do I get to take another drink yet?”

“Combeferre is going to be so sad when he gets home and there’s nothing left in his fridge…”

“Combeferre,” Jehan’s face went solemn as she paused dramatically, “is _gay_.”

“Oh my god… Have… Have you told him? Do you think he knows yet? I can’t believe… that my boyfriend is… gay...”

Courfeyrac trailed off, grinning down at Jehan, lying blushing on the floor between his forearms in a spill of her dreamsicle curls. In any state of greater sobriety he might have had the decency to feel ashamed - he had, when Jehan had arrived to drop off a few returning novels and Courfeyrac had invited the sweet-smiling coquette in for a drink though Combeferre was out at class - he had felt wisps of shame amidst the heady fumes of intoxication, romantic and otherwise. The elation of the little poet’s presence was a high that Courfeyrac had never yet refused. He worried that he never could. Lush smoke and pink cheeks had clouded shame away into the recesses of his mind until Courfeyrac was _shameless_. Soft blue doe eyes glittered below him and the poet wet her cherry petal lips, hopeful and hopeless, and Courfeyrac rested his lips aimlessly upon her freckled forehead.

“You missed,” Jehan whispered.

“You are a bold little hussy, do you know that?” Courfeyrac smiled into her pale skin.

“I am bold in matters of the flesh, but I am timid in all other ways; I am a butterfly in the sunlight, but a falcon under the moon, striking from heights to catch my taste. That’s my charm, see.”

“Your charms are _infinite_.”  
  
The door clicked open and this is the way that Combeferre found them: Arranged end to end on his floor, Jehan on her back and Courfeyrac on his stomach, Courfeyrac’s black curls and blacker eyelashes brushing Jehan’s face gently. His boyfriend’s head lurched up in surprise, and underneath him Jehan rocketed into a sitting position, her skull whacking Courfeyrac’s nose along the way. “Combeferre!” she cried eagerly, and all their tension from earlier in the week seemed forgotten. “Courfeyrac says you’ve never-ever-ever fucked him in a skirt! That’s _tragic_.”  
  
Combeferre closed the door gently with a smile. “Smells like you two have been having fun. Courfeyrac, dear, you need some ice for that?” Courfeyrac grinned sheepishly and shook his head, still cradling his hands over his nose.  
  
Combeferre set his bag down on the floor and drifted behind the countertop that separated the living room from the cramped kitchen. Napoleon padded after him, claws slipping on the kitchen tile. “She was bringing books back,” Courfeyrac called nervously from the floor on the other side of it. Jehan was still laughing brightly, seemingly at nothing.  
  
“I’m afraid I haven’t any of hers to offer in return,” Combeferre said lightly as he rooted through the fridge for something to eat (and noted how little alcohol remained therein), “as in the _two days_ since she was here last, I haven’t finished any reading… It seems that one of us is winning the Bibliophile Grand Prix.”  
  
“Me!” Jehan burst. Combeferre chuckled and leaned his elbows on the countertop with an apple in hand. Courfeyrac was back atop the couch, blushing a deeper red than the apple, but Jehan was still out of sight on the floor.  
  
“Yes, you. Now, I don’t suppose either of you stoners know whose apartment you are in, and what _time_ it is…”  
  
Jehan was climbing back up onto the couch now, right onto an embarrassed Courfeyrac’s lap. “Sleep time?”, she ventured, draping her arms around Courfeyrac’s neck and burying her face against him. Courfeyrac’s hands hovered nervously over her sides, coming to rest on Jehan’s hips with trembling fingers. He shot sidelong glances to Combeferre, seeming to apologize, but Combeferre only smiled pleasantly in return.  
  
“Something like that, though you have neglected to answer the former question, dear Jehan.” He crunched down on the apple, watching with amusement.

“Time to go to bed…” Jehan murmured into Courfeyrac’s collar with a smile.  
  
“Still the same question. Would you like me to take you home, dear? I’m sure Grantaire is waiting to take you into his arms…”  
  
“Grantaire’s bedside is empty, but his mind is occupied,” Jehan replied, but even so she pulled away from Courfeyrac and fixed her hair back into its careless bun, from which it had fallen steadily over the evening. “I am happy to walk, lovely Combeferre, it isn’t far at all. I’ll be home in a song and a half.”  
  
“You’re not exactly capable of taking care of yourself right now, I can drive you -”

“Nope! I’m a big girl, I’ve got this, and your piece of shit car is more likely to die and leave us stranded between hither and yon than to get me home safe,” Jehan exclaimed. “So I shall bid you all _bonne nuit_ , with a tender kiss.” Combeferre watched with surprise as Jehan flung their arms back around Courfeyrac’s neck (Courfeyrac seemed no less alarmed) and plunged straight for Courfeyrac’s mouth, stopping herself just an inch or so away from his lips and turning watery blue eyes up at Courfeyrac. “May I? Combeferre?”, she breathed out, laughing lightly.  
  
Combeferre stared, smile slipping from his face and heat drizzling down his spine to his belly. “Sure,” he breathed out hesitantly, “if Courfeyrac likes.” Courfeyrac peered warily at him from the corner of his eyes, and Combeferre put a reassuring smile on again, trying to project the truth of his glowing approval.  
  
Maybe this would be the night that Jehan didn’t leave after all. A man could dream.  
  
Jehan waited, leaning forward almost imperceptibly until Courfeyrac met her eyes again. His boyfriend slowly brought his lips to the poet’s and Combeferre let in a breath. He thought they might part, might leave it at that gentle press, but they lingered - lingered with their eyelids fluttered shut, and Combeferre watched Courfeyrac’s mouth open gently against Jehan’s, watched Jehan sink into him with flushing cheeks, watched their lips grow soft and wet as they moved against one another. Combeferre stared openly, going only a little slack-jawed and feeling a disquieting rush of arousal. With embarrassment he found himself pressing his hips against the lower cabinets of the counter he leaned against, which only encouraged his uncomfortable state. Courfeyrac and Jehan kissed on, blind to him and all the world, until at last Courfeyrac broke off suddenly and turned immediately to Combeferre as if only just then realizing how long they had been at it.  
  
Combeferre regained himself enough to let out a playful wolf whistle.  
  
“Good night,” Jehan giggled, handing the joint back over to Courfeyrac and fishing out her coat and bag from under the coffee table.  
  
“Good night Jehan, walk safely, and text us when you arrive at home, alright? Longer than twenty minutes and I’m calling the police…” Combeferre wondered how Jehan had tasted, wondered if Courfeyrac would tell him.  
  
“Yes, papa,” Jehan chuckled, and it did _nothing_ to calm the stir in Combeferre’s pants. With her things together, Jehan bid them both a final farewell, blew a kiss to Combeferre, and she departed out into the night.  
  
Courfeyrac was rigid on the couch, looking firmly at his knees with wide eyes and a small,

dazed grin. Combeferre studied him. “Can I have some of that?”, he teased.  
  
Courfeyrac remained thoughtfully lost for a moment. Combeferre imagined him savoring the taste of Jehan on his lips, memorizing the way her slim hips had felt under his palms... Eventually, though, the lights in his boyfriend blinked on again and he registered Combeferre’s request. His sweet cow eyes crinkled with the smarmy, dazzling grin that Combeferre so adored, normalcy returned, and the boy lifted and swung his legs easily over the back of the couch to come sauntering close.

“Some of this?” Courfeyrac brandished the joint with delight and amusement, mischief brewing in his theatrical swagger. “Surely the good doctor knows better than to experiment with illicits…”  
  
“Some of this.” Combeferre put the apple aside and put his hand to Courfeyrac’s warm cheek, drawing him in to kiss him deeply. Courfeyrac practically sprawled himself over the countertop trying to pull himself closer, pressing his tongue past Combeferre’s lips obscenely, giving him a taste of pungent smoke and sweet stolen lip gloss in a clear attempt to prove where his lusts rightly lay.

Combeferre pulled away with a gentle laugh. “That _must_ taste worse than tobacco.”

Courfeyrac wiped the back of his hand over his mouth as though that could smear the taste away. “We’ll have to swap vices someday and find out.”

“Alternatively, we could ask a second party to kiss us both and rule fairly. My, _wherever_ would we find such a martyr… Napoleon? Would you do it?” Combeferre looked down at the dog sniffing around his ankles, and the pup paid him no mind. Combeferre tsked and looked back up at Courfeyrac with immeasurable fondness in his eyes. “That was a hell of a goodbye kiss.”

Courfeyrac flushed immediately. “I apologize,” he said to the countertop. “It wasn’t anything. We’re all tipsy and loose, we just -”

“Don’t be sorry. I liked it.” Combeferre felt his own cheeks warming at the words, surprised he had managed to get them out at all.

Courfeyrac’s eyes widened, his head still tipped low so that he looked up at Combeferre bashfully and nervous though dark calf eyelashes. Combeferre shrugged, faking nonchalance as his heart pounded. “The two of you make an exquisite picture. It was… appealing, to say the least.”

“Combeferre…” Courfeyrac chewed on his full lower lip. He leaned his head back in a gesture of contemplation, black curls falling away from his eyes gazing off at the corners, exposing the sweet bronze column of his throat with all the dark beauty marks that Combeferre loved to kiss. Combeferre moved quickly to get the countertop out of his way, coming around it to wrap his arms around his boyfriend’s thick waist and press his chest into himself, smiling in a daze. Courfeyrac looked him in the eyes and Combeferre could feel the slightest of trembles under his hands as his boyfriend buried his face in the curve of his neck and breathed out shakily. He wrapped one arm around Combeferre and slid a hand up his broad back to rest at the base of his neck, and his other hand reached out for the ashtray on the counter to extinguish and abandon the joint.  

“You know I love you most, right…” Courfeyrac whispered into Combeferre’s collar.

“I think you’re thinking too hard about this,” Combeferre said in a hush and pressed his lips to Courfeyrac’s ear. He breathed in contentedly and nosed his way down to his boyfriend’s hard jaw. Courfeyrac leaned his head away to give him room as he mouthed determinedly at the bone and then at the soft, sinewy flesh of his throat, digging his tongue into the sensitive hollows and wrapping his teeth around the cords of muscle. He had always been such a sucker for that, for feeling strength moving under skin - even the girls he liked had been taut and built, like Éponine had been, with her hard flat abs and solid thighs and full calves - he had never gone for the soft and pretty and delicate things, never, never until _now_. If he wrapped his lips around Jehan’s throat and bit down the way Courfeyrac loved him to, the way he was doing now, he could leave Jehan bruised and gasping for air like her skin was paper and milk and the thought of that kind of power sent shivers rushing to Combeferre’s groin.

Courfeyrac’s arms clung to Combeferre’s back now, fingers scrambling against his shoulders. He breathed in shudders. His grip was desperate. Casanova as he claimed to be, Courfeyrac came apart embarrassingly easily for Combeferre, but there was a frenzied sort of need in him tonight, something new and intense and not altogether warm. Combeferre’s hands slipped down to cup at man’s perfect ass in his palms and rub the muscle through his jeans. “‘Ferre, ‘Ferre,” his boyfriend keened softly, “Please…”

“Please what, sweet boy,” Combeferre hummed lowly into Courfeyrac’s shoulder as his thumbs teased at his waistband.

“Please take me, take me to bed,” Courfeyrac replied heavily. Combeferre would have given anything in that moment for the strength to pick the boy up by his thighs and carry him there, but they had tried that, and it had resulted in a dent in the wall and great yellow bruises and carpet burns and breathless laughter and giddy floor sex. No disaster, to be sure, but not something Combeferre was in a mood to replicate tonight. He hooked his fingers in Courfeyrac’s belt loops and guided him down the hall to the bedroom, hardly missing a step even with his face still buried against the boy’s throat, though how Courfeyrac stayed upright walking backwards with his balance halved by intoxication was either a miracle or a testament to his years of practice.

When they made it to the bedroom there was no pretense to be made. Courfeyrac fell backwards onto the mattress, releasing Combeferre to grasp at the buttons of his too-tight jeans and push them down his thighs. Combeferre grabbed the boy’s shirt and peeled it roughly off of him, wrestling the tangle of limbs and poly-cotton till he had him bare and then grabbing his chest and shoving him down into the duvet. Courfeyrac’s curls bounced and spilled around his head and the sight of it made Combeferre pause, taking a second to drink in the heavenly sight of his boyfriend and his raven halo, but Courfeyrac was whining and clawing at Combeferre’s thighs needily. Combeferre crawled up onto the bed and straddled his waist. He sat himself down on his boyfriend’s pelvis and rocked all-too-gently against his painfully obvious erection through his boxer briefs. “Tell me what you want, Courfeyrac,” he murmured.

Courfeyrac’s hands reached out and grasped at the waistband of Combeferre’s pants, tugging and whining pathetically. He tried to lift his hips, tried to grind himself against Combeferre’s ass, but Combeferre lifted with him and kept that desperately sought friction just out of reach. He gripped Courfeyrac’s wrists hard and dragged them away from his groin. “Down, boy. Use your words. Tell me what you want, sweetheart.”

“Fuck me,” Courfeyrac breathed out. “Fuck me so hard, ‘Ferre, I want your cock in me, want you, want you to make me _yours_ , please own me!”

Combeferre could swear he felt the breath punched from his chest. He would never get over Courfeyrac’s shameless talk, and there was such a hard, pleading _edge_ to it tonight, and they were only beginning… He rewarded his boyfriend with a sensual roll of his hips down onto his still-clothed cock. “Good boy,” Combeferre whispered as Courfeyrac cried out. “You’re so good. I love you so much. Can you be patient?” He released Courfeyrac’s wrists and ran the flat of his palms over the boy’s gorgeous stomach, feeling hard muscle underneath the soft padding of belly fat that he loved so much, brushing his fingers through the hair that trailed down beneath his briefs. Courfeyrac nodded slowly and Combeferre grinned. He pushed his hands upwards now, grasping Courfeyrac’s thick pecs underneath them, pushing and rolling, catching a nipple between two fingers. Courfeyrac squeezed his eyes shut, moaning as he was groped and caressed.

Combeferre slowed his movements just a little, smiling down warmly. What a gorgeous boy he had, so unbelievably beautiful - his heart, his mind, his fucking _body_. Combeferre could feel the boy’s thighs shifting between his legs. They struggled to spread for him even underneath his weight. He knew his boyfriend loved the feeling of being wide open even when there was no touch to be found. Combeferre slid a hand up to Courfeyrac’s neck, pressing down with careful fingers to rub the spots that made those lovely hips jerk.

He still sometimes contemplated those lonely days when a national border and the pyrenees had separated them, settling for what their low resolution webcams could offer. Combeferre had been dating - Éponine had been the first, but not the last, no - and Courfeyrac had been as well, playfully playing the whole field at his school, had even secretly played a few members of his own soccer team… Combeferre was naturally private and spoke only in passing of his romantic dalliances, and never by name, and certainly never directly to Courfeyrac, though it was difficult to put his finger on why. By contrast, Courfeyrac seemed to get off to the whole world knowing. Out of respect to his partners he kept things anonymous, but that only seemed to exaggerate their abundance. Without recurring names they appeared then to be an endless barrage of faceless lovers coming and going from Courfeyrac’s bed leaving behind only stories of fleeting interest; the time he had been interrupted by one of his sisters who had only covered her eyes and continued to ask about the jeans he’d stolen from her; the first time he’d been discovered with a _girl_ and how his mother was delighted that she might have grandchildren from him after all; the time he’d had a threesome with a rival team’s captain and the captain’s girlfriend. The stories came endlessly for a long time, and then one day, they began to mysteriously peter out.

He didn’t stop fucking people, and he certainly hadn’t begun to shut up about it. His blog was still a combination of fashion, politics, porn and, most of all, personal erotica; Enjolras still routinely messaged Combeferre to beg half-seriously that he teach Courfeyrac the phrase ‘TMI’. He had only stopped talking to _Combeferre_ about it. He remembered an evening where he and Courfeyrac were engaged in a facetious but spirited discussion of the science behind pop music trends, only to check Courfeyrac’s blog and notice that he was simultaneously liveblogging the party he was at and the girl in his lap, and he hadn’t even mentioned it to Combeferre.

The realisation that Courfeyrac was carrying on his sex life as enthusiastically as ever and deliberately shielding it from Combeferre had been the beginning of the end of pretending that their feelings were mutually platonic.

But even when that had come out into the open, when they were explicitly romantic, explicitly sexual, explicitly an item of sorts despite the great distance, Courfeyrac’s affairs had continued. They had negotiated it of course. Combeferre was comfortable with Courfeyrac’s disinterest in monogamy, both sexual and romantic. He was comfortable with the fact that Courfeyrac loved many people in many different ways. Combeferre felt no less special. To be sure, he knew it was unusual, knew that he ought to have felt jealousy; but he didn’t. Maybe that was Courfeyrac’s own specialness, his uncanny gift for making a person feel wholly loved and wanted.

If anyone felt shame for his polyamorous inclinations it was Courfeyrac himself.

Despite the assurances that Combeferre didn’t mind, that it was fine to tell him about his dates and his crushes and his sweet, fun sex which only served to fuel Combeferre’s fantasies, he never did. He seemed desperate to prove that his ‘Ferre was the most loved, the most important, seemed to take pride when he could create the illusion of monogamy. It was meaningless to Combeferre at best, and at worst he worried that Courfeyrac was binding himself with shame. Courfeyrac’s decision to be genuinely exclusive with him had been a flattering and elating surprise, but Combeferre wasn’t convinced that it had been a decision arrived at in a healthy way, for healthy reasons.

He wondered what he could do to show this man that he loved that although it had been a nice gesture, it really was alright for him to love others… For them both to, even, if Courfeyrac would consider it.

Courfeyrac had noticed Combeferre’s contemplative pause. His hands still pressed but they were gentle and soothing now. “You’re up there taking your sweet time eyefucking me,” he murmured half-smiling under Combeferre’s leisurely touches, “when you could be for-real fucking me…”

Combeferre chuckled and gave Courfeyrac’s hip a light slap. “I told you to be patient, pretty boy. I’m thinking.” He started to gently lower his torso down, and Courfeyrac brought his hands to run up his still-clothed sides as they came closer together.

“Thinking about what?”

Settled with their bodies aligned, Combeferre pressed his mouth into his favorite hollow, the steep curve of Courfeyrac’s neck into his shoulder. He left kisses slowly dotted along his throat. “Can you still taste Jehan?” he murmured into golden skin.

Courfeyrac’s breath hitched. “Only you now,” he whispered.

It wouldn’t do. “What did she taste like,” Combeferre asked.

There was silence for a long moment, just the sound of their breathing as he slowly sucked a bruise into Courfeyrac’s collarbone. “Pomegranate lip gloss and smoke,” he replied finally with his trembling voice hardly above a whisper. Combeferre felt like glowing, so proud and pleased that his boyfriend was giving into this. He immediately snaked a hand down to palm against Courfeyrac’s groin as reward and encouragement. At the desperately needed touch, the boy inhaled sharply and sighed with relief.

“Good,” Combeferre purred, starting to kiss his way down lower while he gently stroked over Courfeyrac’s cock. He laved his tongue against one nipple, taking his time as though there were no rush in the world for this pleasure, sucking it into his mouth and tugging. Courfeyrac took in a shuddering breath above him and squirmed. He lifted his mouth from his chest for just a moment.“What did it feel like to kiss her?”

He was careful, catching glances up to Courfeyrac’s face to watch for signs of discomfort, but it was contorted in pleasure with closed eyes and a wet open mouth. “She’s so soft, ‘Ferre, so fucking soft…”

“Yeah?” Combeferre hummed happily, slipping down between Courfeyrac’s legs and settling there. He left a few more kisses against Courfeyrac’s irresistible stomach before he pulled away to get comfortable between his lover’s knees, sitting back on his heels and stroking up and down the boy’s thighs. God, those muscular thighs… “Go on.”

Courfeyrac nodded, spreading his legs just a little more. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes; Combeferre hoped he was imagining it. “She was in my lap and… so close, I could feel her breathing, and her eyes, ‘Ferre, have you seen her _eyes_ , they’re so…”  
  
“Mm, I know. Heavenly and sensual, aren’t they?? Always with that sleepy starlet gaze.” Combeferre edged his fingers over the waistband of Courfeyrac’s boxers and tugged them down, adjusting to get them all the way off and then climbing between his legs again. Looking at the way his boyfriend’s warm, flushed cock curved over his stomach still brought nervous heat to his cheeks even after all this time, and from the look of it Courfeyrac was inflamed too.

“Can you feel her now?” he asked. Courfeyrac hummed gently, a question. “Can you feel her mouth on yours,” Combeferre continued, “her tongue sweeping your lips, biting gently…” Combeferre leaned across to retrieve supplies from the bedside drawer with practiced ease. This was not the moment to fumble. “She would move her lips down to your neck while I do this, suck hard just where you like it, move her hands over your chest,” he continued while he slicked his fingers with lube and trailed them down towards Courfeyrac’s ass. Already his boyfriend’s breathing was growing deeper and heavier.

Combeferre was still clothed - Courfeyrac loved this, loved being naked and debauched while Combeferre stayed dressed, maintaining the illusion of cool composure as Courfeyrac writhed - and he was feeling it now, growing flushed and sweaty under all that fabric. But he could hold out a little longer. Courfeyrac pushed his knees farther apart, drawing his feet in closer to tilt up his ass and allow better access. His hands were gripping at the sheets and one drew up to tangle in his own hair.

“You’re so good, Courfeyrac, so beautiful like this,” Combeferre murmured, stroking over the boy’s hole rough enough for him to feel it. Courfeyrac grinned at the praise. He slipped a finger inside with ease. This would be quick; they did this often enough that this part was more fun foreplay than a legitimate necessity. “Jehan would tell you that, would whisper in your ear, against your throat, she would tell you how fucking sexy you look under our hands like this, on your back…” He pressed a second finger in, stroking inside to find that perfect spot. “She’d throw one of those beautiful bare legs over your stomach and rut her cock against your side while I fingered you just like this.” Courfeyrac gasped hard and lurched as Combeferre simultaneously found the place he sought. Courfeyrac’s hole tightened around his fingers and he grinned, pulling them in and out and pressing up with every stroke.

“She’d moan breathily in your ear as she humped your hip, clutching so hard at your chest, you’d slide together so easily… You’d tangle your fingers in her hair and pull, wouldn’t you?” Courfeyrac panted and nodded eagerly, unable to find words. Combeferre pressed the third finger in and used his other hand to pet the silky skin of the inside of his thigh, so close to his cock but not where he wanted it. Courfeyrac bucked up desperately with a drawn out whine.

“She’d climb on top of you, Courfeyrac, straddle your stomach while I still fingered you open,” he reached to lightly graze his fingers across Courfeyrac’s cock, “she’d press herself down onto you and you’d slip inside of her so easily…” Suddenly Courfeyrac’s eyes flew open, he lurched up with a shout and a broken moan tore from his throat. He was coming hard, sputtering over his stomach and Combeferre’s fingers, even splashing his chest… “Jesus Christ,” Combeferre whispered in awe. “Fuck, you liked that.”

Courfeyrac was gasping and Combeferre worked him through it with a dazed smile on his face, watching his eyes flutter shut again and squeeze tight.  “Wow,” Combeferre whispered at last when Courfeyrac slumped bonelessly into the mattress. He pulled his hands away and set them gingerly on his boyfriend’s messy stomach.

Courfeyrac stared at the ceiling for a long moment, taking time to even out his breathing. His mouth opened and closed as he seemed to search for words.

“Doing alright, sweetheart?” Combeferre crooned, caressing his thigh with the hand not covered in come.

Slowly Courfeyrac raised himself, staring with glazed eyes at Combeferre’s chest. He tangled his hands in his shirt and pulled. “I need you to fuck me,” he whispered, “please Combeferre, no games, no Jehan, please just fuck me, I need it, I need…” He was trembling almost imperceptibly and Combeferre began to worry. He took his clean hand and smoothed it over his boyfriend’s damp curls, bringing the boy’s head into his chest, where he clung, still pleading under his breath.  
“You don’t usually like that, Courf,” he said into his temple. “You’re too sensitive after you’ve come, you said it doesn’t feel good to do that right away…”

Courfeyrac shook his head frantically. “No, I really need it, tonight I want you to do this, _please_!”  
  
“Alright,” Combeferre reluctantly agreed. “Do you want me to turn you over?” Courfeyrac nodded and scrambled to get into position on his elbows and knees. His legs were spread wide so that he was low to the mattress still. Combeferre pulled his shirt off at last, not bothering with the buttons, and pushed his pants and boxers off and discarded them on the carpet. It was unceremonious to be sure, but they seemed past the point of seductive stripping. He tore open a condom packet and readied himself.  
  
“Can you… Be down here, pressed against my back…? I want to be close to you…” Courfeyrac sounded almost pitiful, like he was afraid he’d be refused, and Combeferre’s hesitation grew. His boyfriend could fall into a strange headspace from time to time, like Jehan had referenced not long ago; _even Courfeyrac gets ‘sick’, he told me so_ ; days where he lost all his confidence and drifted into something cloudy and uncertain, and Combeferre was nervous that somehow he had accidentally driven him in that direction. This tone felt too uncannily like those days.

“We can stop, Courfeyrac, I don’t need to finish. We can stop if you’re not in the mood anymore.” He rubbed a hand reassuringly over Courfeyrac’s lower back.

“ _No!_ I am, I am, please please _please_ Combeferre,” Courfeyrac begged enthusiastically and shoved himself backwards to rub his ass against Combeferre’s poised cock, but there was still a touch of desperation in his voice. Though he still felt uncertain, concern was being shoved out of his brain to make room for the sensation of Courfeyrac’s plush bare ass against his cock, which drowned out all thought.

“Yes, sweetheart,” he said softly. “Anything for you.” With that, he palmed Courfeyrac’s ass to spread him open (smearing come all over his backside in the process), lined himself up and slowly pushed forwards into him. Courfeyrac’s body made way for him like butter. Mother above, the boy was easy, so open and pliant after his orgasm… As requested, Combeferre leaned forward and braced his forearms on either side of Courfeyrac’s. His torso was long and he was tall enough that even over Courfeyrac’s arched back he was able to mouth at the back of the boy’s neck, to lick the skin beneath his soft curls. Courfeyrac moaned and pressed back into him, taking his cock further. “Doing alright?” Combeferre asked. “Does it feel good?”

“Mhmm. Feels nice… I’m so full, ‘Ferre, fuck, you fill me up so well... Mm, make me yours…” He dropped his head down, cradling his forehead against the pillows and starting a soft little rhythm with his hips.

“You’re always mine,” Combeferre murmured into his hair, struggling to think enough to form words over the slide of Courfeyrac’s walls dragging along his cock. He rolled his hips and followed the pace that had been set. Their bodies were pressed together from tip to tip, their calves and thighs braced together, hips connected, the flat of Combeferre’s stomach pressed into Courfeyrac’s lower back and glued there with the stickiness of their bodies, Courfeyrac’s shoulderblades rolling against his broad chest. With his breath growing labored Combeferre thrust in harder and closed his eyes against Courf’s hair. He sped the pace up, added force until their whole bodies were rocking frantically together. Courfeyrac received each slam with a shaky whine that faded into nothing as Combeferre’s thrusts grew hard enough to punch the air from his lungs. The boy’s curls bounced wildly and Combeferre felt himself coming apart; he bit down hard on the muscle of Courfeyrac’s shoulder, trying to ground himself into the moment. He released his teeth but kept his eyes screwed shut and struggled to speak while maintaining their punishing pace. “A-are you- Ha, haaa,” he lost himself to panting for a moment before trying again, “Are you g-going to come ag-gain?”

Courfeyrac shook his head but was quick to reassure him. “N-no but, please don’t stop, I want you to come, please…”  
  
Combeferre grunted an affirmation and then focused in on achieving his own climax. He meant to end this quickly for the sake of Courfeyrac’s shaking, sensitive body. He alternated their pace from slow and hard to rapid and shallow, chasing his pleasure until white was flashing at the edges of his vision and sparks were blinking everywhere. “F-fuck, Courf, I’m s-so close…”  
  
“Nn, yeah baby,” Courfeyrac keened breathlessly, “you’re so good, taking me so hard, fuck, god, so big and thick inside me, _baby_ ,” and with that, Combeferre was seeing stars. A rush of vibrating heat poured inside of him and he pounded Courfeyrac to completion, moaning raggedly through his climax.  
  
When the shocks of bliss had faded under his skin Combeferre remained pressed against Courfeyrac, breathing his scent in deeply while he softened inside of him. Only when he’d begun to feel sticky and clammy and sensitive did he gently pull himself away. Sitting back on his heels again, he discarded the condom in the bin beside the bed and took a moment to study the boy below him.

Courfeyrac remained positioned where he was for a few more long breaths and then gently collapsed down onto his side. Combeferre watched the way his exquisite chest rose and fell, and noticed the way he avoided Combeferre’s eyes. He moved forward to settle on his hip beside him, propped up against the pillows, and ran his hands once more through Courfeyrac’s hair. His fingers brushed through the feathery bristles of his shaven side.  
  
“Sorry for that,” Courfeyrac whispered.  
  
“Hm?”

“For coming so early. Haven’t blown it that fast since I was a damn amateur. I’m embarrassed, and I’m sorry…” He buried his face against Combeferre’s hip, breathing in unsteadily.

“Oh, _Courf_ … Sweetheart, that was _fine_. I promise you. This isn’t some kind of endurance competition, we’re just enjoying ourselves, enjoying each other… To be honest I was pleased that you enjoyed that so intensely. I… liked that.”

Courfeyrac huffed out a breath against Combeferre’s skin and wrapped an arm around his waist.  
  
“Um… Did _you_ like it? You seemed to but… Are you okay?”  
  
Courfeyrac shrugged to the best of his ability in his position. He buried his face further into Combeferre’s hip. “I liked it,” he said softly. His breath and his full lips shifting against him sent tingles through Combeferre’s skin.  
  
Combeferre continued to pet his boy’s hair contemplatively. His heart began to pound as he sorted out his next words. “Courf…”  
  
“Mm?”

“Forgive me if this suggestion is outlandish. But would you considering doing that… for real?” Heavens, there it was. The damnable fruition of six months of swallowing his pining. But he was confident that he had read this right, he must have, he knew how Courfeyrac felt about Jehan… Certainly he couldn’t oppose this, could he? It was simply necessary to take that first step. Nothing serious, not yet, nothing committal, just… an exploration of possibilities. It could be an audition of sorts.

“Hm? Do… what?”

“Er… With Jehan.”

Courfeyrac went still. His grip on Combeferre’s middle pressed uncomfortably. Combeferre began to worry that he really had fucked this up after all, that he was throwing his boyfriend’s gift of monogamy in his face, that he was making a hard situation harder - but it didn’t _have_ to be hard, it could be so easy…  
  
“I need you to be explicit about what you’re saying, ‘Ferre…”  
  
“I think… Well, it simply feels rather obvious what’s going on, especially after tonight, neither of you have been _subtle_ exactly, and I just thought… It could be a really good thing, perhaps, to relieve all this… tension. It _is_ tension, isn’t it? I can feel it, certainly, and it’s… tense.” Good lord Combeferre, that excellently planned, structured and executed sequence of phrases deserves an award. He barrelled on. “I know how much it matters to you that we’re monogamous, I know that’s an important accomplishment for you, and how much it means that you want that with me, but I know also that you’re… struggling with it. I think that things… don’t have to be that difficult. Our feelings are all clear, aren’t they? We could consider other approaches… Don’t you think?” He took a slow breath. “If you’re amenable, and she’s amenable - and I think she is - I think perhaps we should invite Jehan to bed with us.”

A pause followed that dragged on endlessly. Combeferre’s heart was beating wildly, and he couldn’t feel Courfeyrac’s breath against him anymore. He swallowed uncomfortably. “...for sex,” he clarified.  
  
This, at last, wrested a snort from his boyfriend. “For sex,” Courfeyrac echoed. “You’re proposing a threesome. To… resolve _tensions_.”  
  
“Yes! Exactly.”  
  
Courfeyrac rolled over onto his back, laying his hands on his stomach and then jumping them to his chest when he remembered the stickiness coating his abdomen. He stared at the ceiling with a furrowed brow. “Well, I suppose that’s… one way to approach the situation.”  
  
“It’s a better way than all this pining and frustration, isn’t it? Don’t you want that?”  
  
Courfeyrac considered for a long while. He remained still in his thoughtfulness, and as lights from outside the window passed across his face Combeferre tried to read what hid there. He had never imagined that it would take Courfeyrac so long to weigh this. His feelings had seemed to certain; he was sure that his suggestion would come as a relief, as a gift, just as Courferac’s gift of himself to Combeferre had been. But Courfeyrac stared above into the dark with his lower lip between his teeth, seriousness in his warm brown eyes and conflict written all across him.  
  
At last, he opened his mouth, still hesitating with parted lips before he began to speak. “You’re right,” he said slowly. “That is a better way. I…” He shut his mouth again and then rolled back onto his side, hefting himself up to get his hips under him so that he could sit and meet Combeferre eye to eye. “I am so incredibly blessed,” he said in a rush as his cheeks flushed with color, “to have a boyfriend like you, ‘Ferre… You’re so fucking generous, and understanding, and I’ve had such a hard time…” Now that the words were coming, they poured forth in a stumbling rush. “I’ve always felt like, I’m never gonna be fucking capable of a real relationship because I fall in love with half the people I meet, or it feels that way anyway, and I just never thought anyone would understand that that doesn’t mean that my love is _less_ , or that I don’t think that they’re each so fucking important… And to have you as a partner and for you to be so patient and accepting and secure about it, and to want to, you know, explore other options like this… It just means a lot to me, ‘Ferre, and I know you love me a lot and… I love you. A lot. Too.” He fell forward into Combeferre and Combeferre embraced him closely, not batting an eye at the smearing of gross, tacky fluid across his side. He pulled Courfeyrac’s head in close to his shoulder with one hand and wrapped an arm around his back. He did love this boy, he adored him, and he was grinning from ear to ear now that he knew that he hadn’t ruined everything with his proposal. He tried not to dwell on what that meant for them now, as ruminating on their plans, imagining what lay ahead for them and Jehan together, would inevitably lead to… Well, a second round, and he was not up for that tonight.  
  
“I do love you. I even love you enough to get up and get a warm rag so I can clean up our mess.”  
  
Courfeyrac gladly let him go, falling back to the pillows. When Combeferre returned with a washcloth in hand, he found him smiling gently at nothing, and the smile didn’t fade as Combeferre swept the rag across his stomach and his chest and gently over his soft, sensitive cock. “Alright love. Time for sleeping.” He wiped off his own side where Courfeyrac had pressed against him and discarded the rag on the night table.  
  
“Combeferre?” Courfeyrac called gently from the pillows.  
  
“Mm?” He turned from where he had been settling down under the sheets and leaned over his boyfriend. Courfeyrac wrapped his arms around Combeferre’s neck and pulled him down into a sweet, damp kiss, and another, and a final light smooch that left Combeferre chuckling. “I love you, pretty boy.”  
  
“I love you too, you big hot man. Good night.”  
  
Before he finally relaxed, he stretched over the edge of the bed to retrieve his phone from the pocket of his slacks on the floor. With Courfeyrac nestled sleepily into his shoulder he checked his texts.  
  
**[From: Jehan 23:16]**

>> _I’m home safe! <3 _  
  
**[From: Jehan 23:16]**

>> _Don’t be too jelly, ok? Next time I will kiss you too boo! ;*_  
  
Combeferre blushed and felt a rush of butterflies within.  
  
**[From: 23:21]**

>> _Glad to hear it. Good night, Jehan._  
  
As he made to put his phone away, he realized it wasn’t the only text he’d received since he’d arrived at home.  
  
**[From: Éponine 23:19]**

>> _ferre? u around??_  
  
**[From: Combeferre 23:22]**

>> _Yeah, what’s up?_  
  
The reply came in more quickly than he’d expected, like the text had been ready to send, waiting for his response.  
  
**[From: Éponine 23:22]**

>> _i just wanted 2 kno like… what is the deal… ur crew hasnt hit me up since shit hit the fan with blondie on sat… should i hardcore fuck off or what…_

 _> > ngl i get it and i will step but i just… need 2 kno like… the radio silence is killin me_  
  
**[From: Combeferre 23:24]**

>> _To be honest, it’s killing us too. ‘Blondie’ is being quiet on the matter._

_> > I am caught between my conscience’s pull to read the situation as it is laid out and be loyal to him, and my heart’s happiness that we were connecting again… _

_> > I could feign ignorance and continue my friendship with you until he decides to be more explicit, but that certainly feels like finagling loopholes. In good conscience I can’t claim that his feelings about you aren’t clear. _  
  
**[From: Éponine 23:26]**

>> _def did not ask for a novel_

_> > i’ll make it real easy and gtfo of ur way aight_

_> > problem solved _

**[From: Combeferre 23:27]**

>> _Please don’t do that. Give things time to settle. I wouldn’t be so sure that they won’t settle in your favor._

**[From: Éponine 23:27]**

>> _i would_

_> > u have no idea ferre_

**[From: Combeferre 23:28]**

>> _I seem to recall that you were trying to atone for past transgressions!_

**[From: Éponine 23:26]**

>> _this shit can’t be undone with an apology letter_

**[From: Combeferre 23:26]**

>> _It’s fair to say that you got off rather easy on that one. But you were willing to go further._

_> > I don’t know the extent of what happened between you, to be sure. But if it really did matter to you that you become a better person than you have been… Perhaps this is something you need to face? Whatever that might mean in this situation? _

_> > I worry that if you go around trying to right your wrongs but you ignore this one, you won’t ever feel free. _

**[From: Éponine 23:26]**

>> _easy for u to say u patronizing fuckass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! u have never fucked up in ur god damn life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! dont fuckin tell me 2 ****face this****!!!! dont fuckin talk 2 me abt feeling free when u have NEVER *vomited* from guilt, NEVER let that anxiety keep u awake for days, and eat u the fuck alive!!!!!!!!!!!!! when u have never been in situations over and over where the only option available is the fucked up thing 2 do!!!_

_> > and there i go makin myself the FUCKIN victim too. w/e, fuckin forget it. ill deal w/ this bullshit myself, even if *dealin w/ it* means gettin the fuq out of dodge. dont need ur input on my moral salvation. R is a better preacher than u r, at least he actually knows what bein a chronic fuckup feels like, unlike ur bougie ass _

_> > i already knew i needed to gtfo tbh. i only txtd u bc i fuckin missed our cnversations. _

_> > is it stupid af that even tho im mad @ u rn im glad we talked bc not hearing from u has sucked  _

**[From: Combeferre 23:29]**

>> _I’m sorry. You’re right that I’m naive. And it was selfish of me to imagine a scenario in which you could just fix it and be forgiven; that serves only me, and no one else._

 _> > Enjolras asked me if I trusted you. I told him that I believe in you. Even though we’re just getting to know each other again, I do believe in your strength and your backbone and the sheer force of your being; you are such powerful dynamite, Éponine; and I believe in your potential to use those things to be loving and to do good in the world. _  
  
>> And that’s not stupid at all. I’m glad as well.

**[From: Éponine 23:31]**

>> _why did he ask u that?_

**[From: Combeferre 23:31]**

>> _Because he trusts my judgment and defers to my pacifistic nature when it is hard for him to see past his own intensity._

**[From: Éponine 23:32]**

>> _and u vouched for me?_

**[From: Éponine 23:32]**

>> _I did. And as long as he asks for my opinion I will continue to._

**[From: Éponine 23:34]**

>> _im sorry i went off on u… im sory that ur such a good friend 2 everyone and that im just on attack mode all the time_

_> > im glad u dont want me to leave _

**[From: Combeferre 23:35]**

>> _You do much to keep me grounded. Your companionship is not only a pleasure, but it enriches me, and that is the mark of a truly important friend. I do not want you to leave._

**[From: Éponine 23:38]**

>> _...cool thnx_

_> > idk what 2 say to that sappy shit so im gonna go 2 sleep_

_> > thnx for still not hating me _

**[From: Combeferre 23:39]**

>> _Heh. That’s fair. Good night Ép. I’ll hit you up later, alright?_

**[From: Éponine 23:40]**

>> _k night_

 

Nestled into Combeferre’s shoulder, Courfeyrac shut his eyes to the glow of his boyfriend’s phone and tried to still his quivering stomach.

God, he hadn’t meant for it to come this far.

Combeferre was right, it had been fucking obvious, hadn’t it? _Jehan_. Jehan always smelling like cinnamon and spice, Jehan with her full glossy lips and hazy lapis eyes, Jehan with wild strawberry hair, Jehan in breezy sundresses, Jehan in floral print thrift shop blazers, Jehan in sinfully short shorts and big ugly sweaters and clunky pumps that were just out of fashion but not old enough to be vintage. Shameless Jehan, sugar sweet Jehan, _salacious_ Jehan, sad and hopeless Jehan texting him soliloquies at 3 AM, Jehan inviting him to break into a cemetery to stargaze, Jehan reading poetry somehow both erotic and morbid in his lap. Jehan’s gawky laughter, Jehan’s shivering rage. Jehan wild at the musain, already ready for the revolution. Jehan soft and sunny with strangers. Jehan stopping to take pictures of the flowering weeds that grew in the cracks of the sidewalk, insisting that picking flowers is killing them; but always ready to wear corpses in her hair.  Jehan, his fucking _dream girl_.

And Combeferre, his dream boy, who was so generously willing to give him this once chance to sate himself of her.

He could do it. Yes, he could take Combeferre’s generosity and satisfy himself; have one fucking glorious, incredible, _sextastic_ night with Jehan and finally be able to _move on from her_.

Ever since he’d hit puberty he’d never been able to keep it in his damn tight jeans. His early love life had been such a fucking wreck; he’d been on the receiving end of so many angry break-up rants and letters that ended relationships he wasn’t even aware he’d entered, had never consented to enter; he’d even been smacked across the face a few times, and every girl power teenage movie he’d ever seen assured him he had deserved that bruise... He’d been billed a thoughtless heartbreaker incapable of love. Incapable of commitment. Incapable of lasting. The selfish player, the love interest that gets tossed by the end of every romantic comedy in favor of the actually devoted male lead.

Exclusivity and commitment aren’t the same thing, he’d tried to convince himself; he wasn’t fucking loveless as people told him, he loved too fucking _much_. He fell in love as easily as making a new friend. It was a painful way to live, to constantly pine for people who deserved better than you could give them. By his later teenage years people knew what to expect from him though and that had made things remarkably easier, but it limited his pool to people much more interested in sex than intimacy. These weekend flings and one night stands and month-long affairs satisfied one craving but only exacerbated the other.

And then there had been Combeferre. Combeferre, best friend since he was 13, love of his young life. He’s not sure he even would have considered studying abroad if he’d never met Combeferre on that post online. His life would have gone in such a fantastically different direction.

When they had met in person, it had all collided together, his need for sex _and_ for intimacy, to _love_ and _be_ loved, to narrow his world down to one safe, supportive, wonderful, caring person; to adore that person as they were, to enjoy existing by their side, to grow by being in their presence. It had felt like _enough_. Like he could finally be satisfied. And god how he had wanted Combeferre to know how deeply and thoroughly he satisfied him.

He could do it now, he was sure of it, give himself wholly to this man whom he loved. He could accomplish what he had never before achieved.

And yet here he was, failing fucking spectacularly, blowing himself to beautiful bits like a firework of fucking up. Unable to keep himself from loving and wanting Jehan as well. God, he ought to have known. He always had known, had learned this so long ago! He wasn’t capable of monogamy, and he was just going to lose them both in the end. Jehan would smack him across the face, Combeferre would write him an angry letter about how heartless he was, just like back in middle school.

But Combeferre had come up with this brilliant threesome idea of the “so crazy it just might work” variety; that maybe all they needed to release this terrible tension was to work it off together with a little exercise in the sheets. He’d get to taste Jehan and eat his fill until Combeferre was enough. Combeferre could be enough. He was determined not to disappoint him.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire has poor decision making skills sober, let alone drunk. Apparently he's taking pointers from Eponine this week. Can he survive another visit to the Musain with his dignity and Enjolras's secret both in tact?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK THANK YOU EVERYONE for tolerating my absence! I worked my ASS off to write this chapter in two weeks. It didn't work. I continued to work my ass off for another two weeks, and here it is, ready for you.  
> A few notes: For those of you who don't know, for example if you do not follow this work on Tumblr, there is cover art for every single chapter! Check out my "wild tigers i have known" tag on my blog at princetenjolras!
> 
>  *****ANOTHER MAJOR NOTE******  
>  Attempting to finish this chapter in a timely way and failing to do so was incredibly stressful for me. For the benefit of everyone, **I will be taking a hiatus from posting.**
> 
> That does absolutely not mean I'll be taking a hiatus from writing. I'm going to do my best to use this time to get several chapters ahead so that I can continue to post on a regular bi-weekly schedule!  
>  **Posting will resume with chapter 7 on Friday, April 1st.** That's two months! You guys patiently waited a whole month for this chapter, so I know you can hold out for just twice that!  
>  In case you need reassurance: I love this fic, I have every intention of finishing it, it is definitely not going anywhere until it's complete! Taking a break is going to relieve me of some pressure and help me stay motivated. I love you all and appreciate your support!  
>   
> Warnings for the chapter:  
> Alcohol. Not even kidding, Grantaire is drunk the entire way through this 11k chapter. Tread carefully if alcohol as coping mechanism is hard for you to read.  
> Sexual content; drunk sex, and public sex. (For the record, both encounters are definitely consensual, but they can both also be read as one partner passively tolerating the encounter rather than actively consenting, so if you're sensitive to anything even remotely dubcon, be warned.)  
> And finally, occasional use of outdated pronouns and old name; only in Grantaire's mind, referring to the past.

With the rush of the holidays well behind them now, Grantaire had resumed attending Friday nights at the Musain’s bar with Joly and Bossuet. Had it been up to him, he would gladly have suffered the swelling holiday crowds; yuletide cheer and crowded tavern camaraderie was as satiating an intoxicant as anything else; but crowds on the scale of the Musain’s most bustling season were decidedly Not Joly’s Thing. Grantaire did not blame him. The most immediate shortcoming of an overstuffed venue was that you couldn’t hear a fucking thing your comrades were saying half the time, but it had not occurred to him how much sensory overload was involved even when the chaos was on mute. And so with this in mind the three of them had put their combined wooing efforts on hold for the time being.

But January was coming to her wet and bitter close with the blooming of February on the horizon and there were no more parties to be had, so the trio agreed to commence their congregation once more. Grantaire was grateful. Even for a man whose first step at the sight of impending unpleasantness (or impending pleasure, or an impending ordinary Tuesday afternoon) was to drink, it was rare that he needed a good soaking in wine quite the way that he did at the end of this hell week. If he had even pre-gamed a little, no one would be any the wiser. He had struggled to put down his flask to make the weary, slushing trod to the Musain, but bringing your own booze to a bar seemed more than a little tacky, and so he gripped the last of his social graces and came wandering into the Musain with dry lips and a heavy thirst.

“Like the viola, my dear Musichetta, you bloom in winter as lovelily as any summer flower…” Bossuet was already at work, looking as moonstruck by the creole beauty as he ever had, and always for good reason. Their Atalanta stood tall over the counter pouring a drink unfazed by flattery. She gazed down at him through eyes oak-gold as a lioness. Her dark locks collected in a ribboned knot low on her neck and poured over her shoulder and her supple and appetizing bosom. The woman could live on tips, Grantaire supposed.  “Was that a go at a pun or just poor grammar? No cigar, _bé_ ,” she crooned, and wandered off to deliver the drink.

“A farcical attempt, Bossuet, my dearest friend.” Grantaire approached the bar and greeted Joly and Bossuet with warm grins and warmer embraces. “Our Musichetta of such surpassing beauty deserves better! In the meantime, I’ll _vi-ol-a_ you a round of drinks…” He took his place on a barstool and waggled his eyebrows at his companions.

“Point,” Musichetta called from the other end of the bar with her molasses-rich laughter. “Four hundred and three.”

 _«_ _Are you really paying though_? _»_ Joly signed the question with an incredulous smirk and the endearing tremble of his shoulders that accompanied his silent laughter.

Grantaire sniggered back. He tossed his hands in the air. “Fret not, we’ll sort out the tab later.” Joly shook delightedly again, rolled his eyes and knocked back his drink.

“How do you fare lately, friend? We haven’t heard much from you, since, ah, the business on Saturday…” Bossuet’s face was kind and sympathetic, but Grantaire had never been much for a pitying gaze, and he turned away from the man to see about acquiring a drink for himself and one to replace Joly’s. Musichetta caught their order with half a nod. He contemplated whether or not to answer Bossuet - but what good was alcohol for, if not to loosen a wary tongue?

“Certainly, I have been better - so too have I been worse. A suitably useless statement of limbo for my matching useless state. One could say that I am in purgatory, forever awaiting the angel-delivered signal that I may rise, or descend.” He wouldn’t get a point for the pun buried there, but he could enjoy it privately for himself.

 _«_ _That’s now how purgatory works,_ _»_ Joly returned, eyebrow raised (allowing Bossuet to clarify the word ‘purgatory’ - needless to say, catholic doctrine had not been part of Grantaire’s rudimentary LSF education). _«_ _You do work to leave purgatory… and you can’t go down. Only up._ _»_

“Yes, well.” Grantaire took a large swig of his drink as Musichetta passed it to him, downing most of it in one go. “I’ve done my share of the work. The ball is, as they say, in his court, and he refuses to play. He lies idly in the center circle cradling the ball in his lap like a petulant child. But who am I to force him to game? I am sharp enough to _take a hint_ and _take a hike_.”

“You’ve spoken!”

“Sure we did. Exchanged about as many lively words as myself and good old Joly here. He was terse and then he was gone.”

The bar had settled down a little now and Musichetta had come to rest her elbows against the counter. “ _Ca viens, cher_? What ails you?” Her hair and all its beads and ornaments poured over the glossy countertop where she leaned.

“Want of ale,” Grantaire replied sourly.

“Four hundred and four. Seems that’s your problem every week, _cher_. You have a _new_ bellyache this week. These eyes see straight through that keg you keep hanging on your ribs. Share, _cher_.”

“Oh _belle_ ‘Chetta. It is a rare woman indeed I permit to comment on my keg. You wound me. Straight through the barrel. I’m bleeding wine all over the floor!”

“Put a cork in it and tell me why you look like someone killed your cat.”

Grantaire curled his lips around a mouthful of bitter brew. He gulped it down and took a steadying breath. “God forbid. If someone had killed my cat I’d have come in grinning like a loon. I’d have their severed head on my belt, see, and the adrenalin rush of murder would elate me thoroughly. Now about my sour puss - four o’ six, if I may -” Grantaire looked to Joly and Bossuet, who looked back curiously. They were as desperate to know, he surmised, and only more tactful. What a careful line to walk. Damn Musichetta’s insistence. He took another swig of his drink and measured out what would come next.

“It came to pass in your own hallowed hall, ‘Chetta dear, this very stage.” He swept a hand over the scene of the lively bar. “A saturday afternoon ensemble scattered about at assorted tables, conversations hushed and cheery, and myself on the raised platform, seated there, cheated to show the audience my relaxed posture, so that they would never suspect the shock to come. Jehan is at my left, engrossed with my hands. Eponine at my right, wary of the scene. The tense lines of her body half in shadow, bringing suspense to the otherwise harmonious lay of the stage.” Grantaire paused for a drink. He savored it slowly, glancing to the faces of his enraptured audience.

“Into the golden light burst the principal cast, from stage left to stage right, merry and bustling! The company you know and adore, dear ‘Chetta, dancing out the blocking they have rehearsed on so many an uneventful Saturday. Eponine braces herself, and the audience with her. They promenade across downstage and circle up the platform steps. One by one, a merry band disperses themselves to the tables.

“Suddenly, quite suddenly, the warm afternoon light disappears to pitch darkness and a flash of blue light. One spotlight falls upon me, upon my shock - and the other illuminates, at the end of the procession, the object of my horror in vivid, dreamlike blue. _Enjolras._ The audience knows that we have left the realm of the real to enter the surreal. This is where we stand, he and I, across the stage from one another in a world our own. Think Tony and Maria at the dance, but less lovestricken and more _spiritual orgasm_. Grantaire and Enjolras, dreaming. Nightmaring awake. The stage is black, and we are glowing. Dust drifts across our forms. He says nothing. I... say nothing. The audience has goosebumps. I lean forward, begin to rise - recognition, the audience understands - and the stage is burst in a flash of blinding white as lightning, the crack of a whip accompanies, spotlights vanish, and we are all lit in still, otherworldly blue… and he runs. Down the stairs. Across the front of the stage. Exit stage left, pursued by nine gazes upon his ghost. The blue light fades to the warm golds of before, and those gazes are all upon me now, fearful and suspicious. They beg an explanation that never comes. Curtain.”

Grantaire paused there, wrapping his lips around his bottle and chugging down a little more. With the combination of his day-drinking and this strong introduction to the evening he could feel it start to hit him now, carving out an acidic empty hole in his belly, filling the space behind his eyes with cotton. Just a pleasant little distance between himself and the present, nothing  more. Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta stared.

Finally Joly slammed his fist into the table. _«_ _Yes, we were all there_ , _»_ he gestured adamantly, his signs sharp and punctuated. _«_ _And??_ _»_

“Dear as you are to me, _joli_ Joly, how long have I made your joyous acquaintance? Not even two months… Let a man keep his secrets!”

Joly stared for a long moment. The pointed tilt of his head made Grantaire wonder if he needed to repeat himself with the addition of his few clumsy signs, but after a moment Joly began to type furiously on his phone. That always meant he had quite a bit to say, more than Grantaire could chew and swallow with signs alone, and in this context it seemed foreboding. “ _And we’ve known Enjolras three times as long_ ,” the app sounded out robotically. “ _But we’re here. With you. I do adore you Grantaire but you’re asking us to take on faith that Enjolras’s panic wasn’t justified and you won’t even defend yourself. That’s a lot to ask from friends you’ve only known two months. Isn’t it?”_

Grantaire slammed his bottle back down onto the table, causing Joly to startle. “I thought I came here to enjoy a few drinks with friends, not to be _interrogated_. If I’d known this was an ambush I’d have stayed home - or at least come properly wasted already.”

Bossuet was quick to lay a calming hand on Grantaire’s arm, but before he could speak, Musichetta huffed and rose to her full height. “Tell me about this spiritual orgasm of yours, _cher_. These hound dogs are all riled up about that flight your boy made, but I want to know about _that_ part.”

The three of them looked up at her, all eyes full of questions. While Bossuet repeated her to Joly with his hands Grantaire stared down into his drink and looked for Enjolras in his mind’s eye. God knows he’d found him at the bottom of a bottle a thousand times before in the last six years. Nobody had ever _asked_ about Enjolras, now or ever - not about how Enjolras had made him _feel_.

“And none of those metaphors you use as curtains to hide behind and flashes of light to draw the eye from the truth,” Musichetta interrupted his musing. “Tell it plain.”

“Well I can’t promise you that, ‘Chetta,” Grantaire drawled, filling the space while he contemplated. “My mind doesn’t work that way. Least of all when it’s taking a wandering swim in the lazy brown river, which winds and twists and cascades…” He raised his drink to her. She looked back without smiling, and he slumped forward with a sigh. Chewing on his tongue he considered. Give him the topic of holy Angèle and he could take to the pulpit and preach until the end of days. What did they want to know? What could he afford to say? What could he get away with, and sate his soul of all this aching and wanting? “Enjolras and I were… friends, once. When we were children.”

It was a plain beginning, as Musichetta had wanted, but in plainness it was devoid of truth. What better things he could have said, truer things – that they were young angels of the wayside, dirty-feathered, lost upon the earth, carrying divinity inside of them; that he had washed her dirty feet; that he had loved her - _him_ , fuck it all. He didn’t deserve to tell this story. He didn’t even know him anymore.

“We were foster children together, imprisoned in the same hideous hole of avarice and hunger.” What he did know, though, was that whoever he was after all these years, Enjolras still – would always – deserve be venerated with poetry. Nothing less than scripture could convey him and all his sallow beauty. Musichetta could stuff it. “It was the most miserable over-sized shack that the forgotten hamlets of our good France do offer, inhabited by villains of the most base degree. Those villains our authorities and providers.” _Our brothers, our sisters. His captors; my consorts, my confidantes._ “If we bonded it was two souls finding solace in a shared hell. And it is the best I can do to imagine… that Enjolras, for good and righteous reason, has no wish to remember the pit he began his otherwise illustrious life in. He has no wish to remember me. I am a relic of a time he has, I imagine, worked all his life to bury.” Half the truth - or all the truth in a half-hidden sort of way. It was close enough.

“I knew Enjolras was adopted,” Bossuet whispered. “I thought it was in infancy, perhaps. I’d never considered that there was… a ‘before’.”

Grantaire nodded, tight-mouthed. How many things Bossuet did not know, and God willing should never know. He finished his bottle and looked pleadingly to Musichetta for another, who went about replacing it with a raised eyebrow. He examined his heavy forearms on the bar counter sullenly and continued.

“It is of no shock to me to find that Enjolras has grown to be the young and fearsome lion-leader of a crew of idealistic rabble-rousers.” He took his drink, gulped a portion down and rambled on. “Like the messiah in the manger, he was born into squalor with his golden halo formed already, and I was the pathetic shepherd boy with naught to offer to his altar but the beat of my drum. You all look to him now, trust and admire him – imagine my pitiable state then, when all that glory was concentrated into his fragile little child’s form, when it _burst_ from him, when in the suffocating darkness of our circumstances he burned as the sun? Could I be blamed? In a time desperate for faith, I found a god and I worshipped. Can it be held against me? But I am enshrouded in the darkest part of his life, while he is the brightest part of mine.”

 _«_ _You loved him_ _»_. Joly expression was soft and serious now and the forms of his hands were certain. _«_ _It makes sense now_ _»_. Grantaire looked from Joly to Bossuet – the man’s eyes were wide, as kind as they ever were, and he seemed to hang upon Grantaire’s tale. Musichetta listened with a raised brow and a curious smile.    
  
Grantaire considered shrugging. He considered changing his mind, changing his story. He considered waving it away with a clever joke and a monologue meant, as Musichetta had suggested, to bedazzle the eye and slip honesty behind his back. Instead, he pulled his lips back from the rim of the bottle and said, “Yes.”  The word left an empty feeling in his mouth, like a bird he had held in his chest and now watched fluttering away.

“What was he like?” Bossuet asked eagerly. “I’ll bet he was a ferocious kid, right? Who didn’t take any shit from anyone… He’s filterless now as he is, I can’t imagine how precocious and smart-mouthed he must have been as a child… Probably writing misspelt speeches on the ills of the foster system, huh!”

Grantaire chuckled darkly with a slow shake of his head. “What, did Little Orphan Annie teach you what motherless children in abusive homes are like? Is that what you’re picturing? Some radiant curly-haired little boy with rosy cheeks and snappy comebacks, defiant and optimistic despite all his chores?”  
  
Bossuet looked down, chastised. Grantaire did love his new friends, but they both had enjoyed upbringings in marble and warm embraces that he couldn’t fathom. “When I found Enjolras it was a miracle he was _alive,_ and I want you to know that that isn’t a fucking metaphor.” Grantaire took a drink and tried not to look at their astonished faces. “He wasn’t penning any fucking essays, Jesus _Christ,_ what a shitty joke. Kid couldn’t even fucking read. He was a little child _surviving_. Despite growing up from infancy so unloved that he was hardly fed or spoken to, he was surviving, with pulsing blood and split lips and ferocity he couldn’t speak that wrote itself instead into the curve of his spine, the set of his shoulders. He was mute, he was starved, he was filthy, he was bruised and he was…” Beautiful. The round, white disc of the sun through a damp haze of bleary soot-gray fog. “He was filled with _life_ and with anger and with fear and somehow, miraculously, with love. I didn’t need to hear his _rhetoric_ to know he was worth worshipping.”  He stopped to take in air and alcohol, relieved that he’d made it the entire way through that emotional one-breath-monologue without misstepping.

The trio around him were astonished. Musichetta was grinning, expression alight like Grantaire had never seen it. “You are deep in trouble,” she chuckled, and Grantaire somberly agreed.

 _«_ _And what did Enjolras feel for you?_ _»_ Joly questioned at last.

Grantaire swallowed. “Contempt, apparently, if his silence is any indication,” he muttered bitterly. “But who can say but Enjolras? Ask him. That is all I have to say on _that_ matter. Now please, if I have satisfied you that he’s in no _danger_ from me, never was and never will be, may we move on from this invasive topic…”  
  
Joly looked to Bossuet, who looked to Musichetta. The lattermost stood up from the bar with a shake of her shoulder and moved away to give attention to other patrons, but as she went she left Grantaire with a sly and unsettling smile. That, he thought to himself, was a girl whose intuition was strung with the stars. His head tipped forward drunkenly into his palms and fireworks shimmered behind the press of his eyes. The world sounded far away and hollow as though filtered through a conch. As always, Enjolras drifted before him in the patterns of blindness, but no longer the little child he was; it was now that moment of recognition and horror which he stood so close to at this very moment, in the upper floor of the musain, where the impact of that fleeting glance had sunken into the doorway and would remain for all time like a haunting. Enjolras’s wide gray-blue eyes. The terror therein. Terror of him, of Grantaire. The curls of yellow silk that fell from Enjolras’s ribbon and framed his pale moon face. The urge to fight or fly wired all through his small, tense body, sparking and spitting and making snap decisions. God, he had had hardly anything and he felt more drunk than he’d been in a long time. More disarmed, more witless, more likely to topple over with a passing breeze.

“Grantaire?” Bossuet was calling in the distance. Grantaire lifted his head wearily, lights still popping in front of him, and grunted a question mark. “Doing alright, friend?”  
  
“Oh yes,” he lied. “Let’s order another round and lighten the mood a little.”

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Lifting himself up the series of stairs to his apartment was, by this late hour and this soggy state, a task perhaps on par with the labor of Sisyphus and seemed to promise a similarly worthless end result. It would not be the first time that he’d passed out on the steps when the bed waiting for him felt no more appealing. If he would at last arrive in his bed he wasn’t sure he’d find it in him to make it out again for a good few days, and in the swirling downward spiral he found himself now swimming - comparable to the flush of a toilet, his muddled brain provided aptly, if unimaginatively - his bed may as well be his grave. Or a sewer, to extend the metaphor. It would be about as dark, muggy and rancid when he was done with it. Frankly he wouldn’t be shocked if the end of his life combined grave and sewer together. Such would be a fitting place for him to rot.

From the acrid topic of Enjolras, his evening with Joly and Bossuet had seemed to improve, if only externally. There had been laughter - quite a lot, if memory served - there had been puns, and they had increased their total to 434. Or 432… Or 423? Bah, Musichetta would remember. He wasn’t their pun accountant. Merely the pun teller. (He ought to ring Musichetta up and tell ‘er that one right this moment… Nevermind, it wouldn’t make sense. Fuck, he was drunk.)

However, though the subject of Enjolras had left the table, it had never quite managed to leave his mind. He’d replayed those fateful thirty seconds, or ten seconds, or four seconds, however many grains of sand had drizzled over his electric eyes, over in his mind again and again.

He’d be lying if he said he’d never imagined them before.

He’d never _hoped_ for it, no. Certainly never _expected_ it. But a man has his fantasies. In brighter days, they were a comfort, a thrill, a soft daydream. In the dark when beasts in his head were clawing at his skin they were more potent masochism than any razor.

He had imagined her - back then, in his mind, it had been her - little Artemis, clean skin, round pink cheeks, glowing with health and happiness - still fierceness in her glass blue eyes, determination in her clever white smile - a spirited filly at thirteen, a wild nymph at fifteen, a commander of armies at seventeen like her predecessor Jeanne d’Arc; she would see him across a crowded room. Her cherry lips would part, her lungs would swell inside her ribs, her white hands would ball into fragile fists. _It can’t be_ , she’d think. _Could it be?_ she’d think. _My god, he’s handsome_ , she’d think. (That part was always the sweetest knife in his belly, sending aching pain shooting through his chest, his wrists, his throat. She would never think such a thing. That’s what made it a fantasy.) She would move through the crowd like a dream, gentling shoulders aside, until she would _run_. Yes, she would run (that part had been true at least, but he’d always thought it would be _towards_ him) and his name would form in her perfect mouth, first a whisper, then a shout. He’d see her then, and she’d stumble to a stop before him, and the room would fade away, the crowd would hush in their ears. (That part had been true too. For those brief moments, they had been the only inhabitants of their own blue-lit starry earth.) How her eyes would shine. She would fall towards him, wrap her arms around his neck, and he would lift her like a dancer into his arms and he would kiss her as though she held the secrets of the universe on her angelic tongue. “Angèle,” he’d whisper to her, “I had always hoped… But I had never thought it would really happen… Angèle, I’ve waited so long to see you again… You’ve grown to be so beautiful…” And she would love him, and he would love her, and they’d live happily until the end of time.  
  
What a fucking farce. There is nothing better to make the idealist a cynic than the truth.

It took about seven tries with his key for Grantaire to convince the door to his apartment to open. He grew increasingly irate with every failed attempt until he half considered kicking the fucking doorknob off or simply falling dead onto the landing and giving up, until at last it gave way. A fuschia silk robe and a heavy crocheted afghan stood directly on the other side, with Jehan inside of them, and Grantaire remembered why he came home at all rather than passing out in the street or crashing with Joly and Bossuet. “Grantaire, dear,” Jehan cooed sympathetically, “were you trying to open the door with your work key?”

Grantaire looked down at the key, huffing with irritation. “No,” he tried slowly. His voice sounded far away, detached from his body. “It opened the apartment. Look. The apartment’s open.”

“Yes, sweetheart, I came to investigate the clumsy burglar clawing at the door and I opened it. Lo and behold…” Jehan grinned cheekily and then clasped Grantaire’s cold face in her warm hands. “Come in here, beautiful. To bed with you. You. are. _drunk_.” She was flushed and cheery and it was killing him. He was too pissed for that kind of loveliness. He could eat her alive.  
  
No sooner was Grantaire through the door than he was crowding against her, picking her up by the hips and slamming her into a pillar in the foyer.  She gave a startled yelp and scrambled against him while he attacked her neck with the vicious open jaws of a tiger in for the kill. Her hands clutched at his shoulders; her knees lifted and pressed his sides; give it half a second and he’d drop her on the ground, and even with hardly half a shade of his wits he would never let that happen, so he grasped her thighs and hauled her onto the half-wall that divided the foyer from the living room but did not give even a moment of pause to the tender meat he was making of her lily-white throat.

“‘Taire,” she gasped uncertainly, “What the hell… You frisky drunk dog...” Now clumsily seated atop the wall her afghan was in a pile on the floor and her robe had spilled open, revealing bare ivory thighs and thin black lace for Grantaire to press against. She was fully hard against him, and Grantaire wondered whether his drunken aggression had simply been _that_ arousing or whether his fumblings against the door had interrupted playtime. Either way, she was exactly as he wanted her, and he ground his stirring cock against hers through his jeans. “Nn… Fuck, Grantaire, get your zipper off my dick. C-come on.”

Grantaire obliged her, taking a hand off her (he hadn’t realized how hard he’d been gripping her sides; his knuckles were stiff with the effort and he wondered whether he’d bruised her much and if she’d be irritated and tender in the morning or if she’d take pictures for her instagram) and pulling at the button and zipper of his jeans until he could shove them down his hips a little and pull himself out of his boxers. “Fuck,” he cursed into her ear as he stroked himself to hardness. “ _Fuck_ , where’s the nearest fucking lube fuck…”  
  
“Don’t worry, I’m good,” she panted. So it had been playtime after all. Carelessly he tugged aside her lacy panties, because fuck if he would give ten seconds to stepping away and untangling them from her long legs, and with a rough hand that made her keen discovered that she was slick and open already, as promised. With a large hand he lifted her supple thigh, closed his eyes where his brow pressed into her sweaty mess of hair, and shoved himself into her with a heavy sigh.

He had expected relief to hit him when at last he had her but his desperation only grew. With one hand she held the back of his jacket in a fierce grip and with the other she clutched the edge of her precarious seat and every rough and careless thrust threatened to throw her backwards over it. His grunts of effort and her throaty cries, as much in pain as in pleasure, echoed in the midnight silence of the foyer.

With his nose buried in her curls she smelled like sex and weed and cloying perfume. It was a good smell, a distinctly Jehan smell, but the thickness of it had his stomach rolling underneath the warm shocks in his groin and his arousal climbing rapidly to his overearly climax.  
  
“Taire, fuck, that hurts, ‘Taire, don’t stop,” she panted into his ear and he pounded her mercilessly in return, chasing the blinding white at the edges of his vision. When the sparks came at last they were mute and disappointing to say the least. Drunk quickies could rarely promise better.

Jehan breathed heavily against Grantaire’s hair, her lower body still trembling with the effort of her perch. She sighed and ran a hand comfortingly over his back. “Welp, better cross our fingers and hope that we’re both clean,” she murmured light-heartedly.

Grantaire groaned. Condoms. Those were a thing. Ugh. “You were tested last month,” he muttered tiredly, “and I’ve only fucked _you_ , for the last… four, five… thousand years…”  
  
“I know baby, I was joking. We’re fine. Now get on your knees and finish me, bitch.”  
  
Another wave of nausea rolled through him, but it was the least he could do after all of that. He sank to the floor obligingly and took her quickly and deep.

Fourteen minutes later Grantaire was still on his knees and regretting everything.

“Shh,” Jehan whispered. “You’ll live.” She ran her light hands through his hair, gathering it between her fingers and stroking it away from his face.

“Noooo,” Grantaire replied weakly, and promptly heaved more of his sloshing guts into the toilet. The moment of release was always an instant of temporary relief and he wheezed and dry heaved after it, praying for more still. God, what a good friend was Jehan. She was poised beside him on the bathroom tile keeping his sweaty, disgusting hair up and he could only think of how much better she deserved than this.

“I kissed Courfeyrac today,” she mused aloud. Speaking of which. Grantaire grunted questioningly - the only reply he could manage. “Combeferre watched.” He grunted again, trying to put a little more shock and urgency into the wretched noise.

Jehan sighed and Grantaire could hear the dreamy tinge to it, could sense the smile in her voice. “We had a lovely time, R. I went to take some books back to Combeferre but I guess he was at class, and Courfeyrac was home waiting for him… He invited me in and we smoked and drank and talked and played _never have I ever_. My first impression of him was right, R, he’s an angel and a magical kisser too.” Jehan sighed again, even more wistfully this time.

R wiped the slobber from his chin and tilted his head to see the romantic Romantic a little better. “Well at least one of us is succeeding in matters of love,” he forced out, and immediately turned back to the toilet and dry-heaved into it again, only managing to produce a disgusting amount of drool. Surely his stomach was empty by now?

“I’m not sure I’d call it that,” Jehan replied mournfully. “I was trying to move on, you know? I feel teased, like they’ve whet my appetite and won’t let me _eat_ … But whose silly fault is that, anyway. I was the one who asked to kiss him. I’m an easy fool who can’t let go of a pretty thing, however hopeless.”

Grantaire let his head fall upon his shoulder. “I know how that feels,” he murmured. “Do we love pretty and hopeless things because we are fools?” he wondered aloud, “or are we fools because we love pretty and hopeless things?”

“Profound ponderings from a man with his head halfway down the u-bend.”

“What’s his problem, anyway?”

“Hm?”

“I don’t mean to - fuck, I’m gonna barf - I don’t mean to make a _big deal_ of _nothing_ , but I thought we were friends, y’know? Like all this time I’ve always fuckin dreamed of seeing him again. Thought he’d be really happy. Like I was. What’s his deal, Jehan? Is it ‘cause he’s really rich now or some - Oh god, bluuhhh - some bullshit like that? Like I’m not good enough anymore? I look like shit, don’t I.”

“No, Grantaire, shh. Don’t think about this now, look how drunk you are.”

“I’m drunk and fat and hairy and gross and poor and… fuckin… _ethnic_ and shit. He’s a fuckin… rich white kid now, isn’t he. Waltzing around with picket signs. Isn’t that what you do?”

“R…”

“I’m gonna go to the Musain again. Tomorrow. He’ll be there. And I’m gonna say… Gonna say, at least send me a, a text or something, that says ‘OH FUCK OFF’. Don’t just fucking. Not talk to me. Who does he think he is?”

“A person with an anxiety disorder. Now come on, sweetheart. I think you’ve puked out all you’ve got in there. Let me wash you up and take you to bed.”

“A what. Okay? Okay. Please make the water warm please.”

“You know it, babe.” Jehan smoothed his hair and left him slumped over the toilet for a moment before returning with a warm wash cloth. “We’ll talk about this again when you’re sober, alright R?” She lifted his cheek gently in her palm and turned it towards her, running it over his clammy forehead and spit-slick lips. “Come on now. Get out of those clothes and I’ll get you a glass of water.”  
  
“Okay… Jehan… I love you...”  
  
“I know you do, sweetheart. Come on, up on your feet.”

“I really mean it, you’re really beautiful and, intelligent as all fuck, and you take care of me and I love you a lot and Combeferre and Courfeyrac can eat ten dicks.”  

“Yeah they can babe. Up, up.”

“Carry me?”

“You are _literally_ twice my weight. On your feet dear. I love you too.”

 

\----------------------------------------

 

**[From: _Jolllly_ 10:18]**

>> _Are you alive?_

**[From: _Jolllly_ 10:39]**

>> _Grantaire? Grantaire if you died of alcohol poisoning I’m going to kill you_

**[From: _Jolllly_ 11:40]**

>> _I’M GOING TO ASSUME YOU’RE SLEEPING OFF YOUR HANGOVER BUT YOU’D BETTER MESSAGE ME THE INSTANT YOU’RE AWAKE_

**[From: _Jolllly_ 12:06]**

>> _GRANTAIRE I’M DYING PLEASE MESSAGE ME. WAKE THE FUCK UP. I’M TEXTING PROUVAIRE_

**[From: _Jolllly_ 12:09]**

>> _Prouvaire says that you are still breathing. :) Happy sleeping_

>> _Drink lots of water if you wake up!_

**[From: _Grantâne_ 13:25]**

>> _joly shit_

**[From: _Jolllly_ 13:25]**

>> _GRANTAIRE! :D_

**[From: _Grantâne_ 13:27]**

>> _i drunk 2 whole gaslaes of h2o jut for u bro_

**[From: _Jolllly_ 13:27]**

>> _… Go back to sleep R._

**[From: _Grantâne_ 13:25]**

>> _no_

>> _;D_

In his right hand, Grantaire balanced his phone. In the other, the flask he had filled for the road (and then made a significant dent in and then filled again). He wore a rumpled wine-violet v-neck and mismatched socks but he hadn’t quite gotten around to pants yet. He was working on it.  
  
Jehan, already dressed in lime green jeans and a festive pink snowflake sweater and ready to go, was staring at him from the other side of their kitchen with disappointment and disapproval. “You know Grantaire, when I said we’d talk about this when you were sober, I wasn’t counting on you refusing sobriety well into the morning. Or the afternoon that serves as such for a drunk like yourself, hmm?”

Grantaire grinned a lopsided grin and shrugged. “Then you underestimate me. Why all your salt, dear beloved? For months and months you begged that I attend your politics club with you - well now I am ready for my second meeting, save for some pants, and you would be irate?” He took a swig of his flask and wandered off towards the stairs. Jehan followed.

“R, don’t play the innocent,” they pleaded as they skipped up the stairs after him. “I wanted you to come because I thought you might have a valuable perspective on our politics and our projects. You’re only attending now to be an antagonizing jerk.”

“Am not,” Grantaired rebutted eloquently. He turned into their bedroom and found a pair of dark gray jeans in a laundry pile on the floor. “I am _very_ interested in politics and projects. I am going to be a model member.” Standing on one foot long enough to get his legs into the jeans was proving difficult since the room would not keep from wobbling, so he flopped down onto his ass on the carpet and wiggled them on that way. “I promise Jehan, I pinky swear, I am going to be very very good.”

Jehan stood over them a tight mouth and crossed arms, but their expression was one of concern and pity.  “You are going to be very very _trashy_.”

“Am _not_!” Grantaire insisted. The pants would not go over his ass because his ass was on the floor. This was a dilemma. Surely his twenty one years of life had equipped him with the skill and know-how to face this conflict and overcome it.

“Last night you told me that you were going to go to the meeting, confront Enjolras, and tell him that you at least deserved a ‘fuck off’ text.”

“Yes, well…” He’d figured it out. If he rolled on to his stomach, his ass wouldn’t be on the floor anymore. “That doesn’t count. Because I don’t remember it happening,” he asserted with his face smushed into the carpet. If he wiggled his knees up just so like a caterpillar, he might… be able to… unf… “I have decided to come to the Musain for completely new reasons.”

“Grantaire... Damn it, Grantaire, stop thrashing around on the ground.” Jehan came to his rescue, hooking the man’s knees over their shoulders, hoisting his lower back up off the ground and shoving his pants down over his hips. “You can’t even put on your own pants today, R, and you reek of whiskey and you sound like a smart-ass fourth grader after nap time. This is a day for staying inside, not for trying to impress your middle school boyfriend.”

“What if I take a vow of silence?” Grantaire collapsed spread-eagle on the floor. The ceiling and Jehan’s radiant face spun above him.  “If I promise to be very quiet and very good and just _listen_ , can I go then?”  
  
Jehan stood up, crossed their arms over their sweater and considered. “You’re a grown man you know, and I can’t tell you whether or not you can go. I have only been trying to advise you against making decisions you’ll regret. Decisions you’ve made after being in various states of intoxication and post-intoxication and re-intoxication for… going on eighteen hours now. Best case scenario, you arrive just to puke all over Enjolras’s shoes.” They shifted their weight onto their other hip and huffed. “That said, if you’re going to insist on accompanying me, it would certainly benefit you to keep your mouth shut.”

“Yesss,” Grantaire whispered, and then clamped a hand over his mouth.

After Grantaire had gotten a cardigan on - albeit with the buttons a little misplaced - and a knit hat and leather jacket for the cold, and refilled his flask one more time, they made it through the grey winter slush to the Musain with minimal Grantaire-related ice accidents. He seemed to grow cheerier and more determined the closer they approached the cafe, and that was the only thing to be said for his drunkenness; sober, his impending attempt at reunion would have filled him with sickening dread.

When the pair arrived they happened upon Feuilly, early as he typically was, and Bahorel beside him. Their pair of grins upon seeing Grantaire on Jehan’s arm were confused at best. “R!” Bahorel greeted him, “Didn’t think I’d see you ‘round here again!” It was a question, and Grantaire declined to answer. He settled instead for a hearty dodge.

“Oh yes,” he replied, “Come again to get all involved in this activist business. I thought to myself, R, you have taken so much from our fine nation, isn’t it time to give a little back? It’s everything my mum and dad would have wanted…” He gave a lopsided grin in return and reached for his flask.

Bahorel grimaced at his comment and outright frowned at the gulp of liquor he swallowed down. “Does Enjolras know you’re coming?”

“What, are you worried my presence will bring a premature climax to yet another meeting? Come, Jehan, I’d like to get a good seat… In the very, very back…” Jehan shot an apologetic glance to the pair of them and escorted Grantaire onwards towards the stairs, and Bahorel and Feuilly followed, flanking them like nervous mother hens.

Jehan settled Grantaire at a cozy corner table halfway behind some curtains where they had a clear enough view of the front of the room but still maintained the illusion of being set apart and hidden away. When Joly and Bossuet arrived it took them a few moments for them to even notice Grantaire’s presence.

 _«_ _Holy shit you’re alive_ _»_ Joly signed from across the room. Grantaire nodded, grinning again, and took another swig from his flask.

 _«_ _Happy to see you babe_ _»_ he shot back when he set it down. Joly took a look at Bossuet and his hands twitched with an aborted motion; Grantaire recognized that gesture easily by now. It was Joly being too accustomed to signing being his private language with Bossuet and forcing himself to remember that he was in a company where it was not so private now. Dead giveaway for an attempt to think rudely out loud (figuratively speaking). But Joly recovered the fumble quickly, plastering on a grin and pulling Bossuet along to take a place at Grantaire’s table.

They’d hardly been seated a moment before the doorway was crowded again, and - holy shit, this was it. He hadn’t expected him to be here so quickly; hadn’t realized the reality of this moment until it broke over him in a wave of blinding sunlight. Grantaire held his breath while his stomach threatened to evacuate itself from the seat of his pants. Jehan’s grip on his hand tightened and he thought to look to see his friend’s expression but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the beauty in motion that was _smiling Enjolras_.

The boy hadn’t seen him yet, he was smiling at Combeferre with his straight, white teeth parted in a gentle laugh - it was everything, everything in the cosmos wrapped into one starry gift to see his vicious little wounded bird now bright and laughing, and he prayed that this would be the image that stained in his mind in death when Enjolras turned around and killed him on the spot with a blue-gray gaze. His features were all there, all as he remembered. That small, straight, elegant nose; the pronounced turn of his jaw, hard even in his childhood; those wide, glass eyes and their pale blinking eyelashes; but everything was cleaner now, scrubbed pinkish and peachy like he’d fantasized, and fatter, healthier, fuller. No more dull dirty bones. Enjolras glowed the way he did in Grantaire’s dreams. Grantaire watched him pull a ragged grey hat from his head and - fuck, every seraph above, look at those aurulent curls tumble. They graced his cheeks, his collarbones, the soft ivory nape of his neck. Grantaire could sculpt him in marble and real gold and the boy would have another twin. He felt sick and lightheaded and lost.

The symphonies playing in his ears reached their swell as Enjolras turned in a flutter of light and feathers and cherry blossoms and, with a rushing inhalation, he found Grantaire lurking in the curtains with the shadows.

“Enjolras,” Grantaire tried to call out gently, but it choked and stuck in his throat and stumbled out cracking and half-whispered. He opened his mouth to try again but couldn’t find the breath.

Enjolras’s smile was gone, and his light with it. Here again was an expression that Grantaire recognized. He knew it from the days spent in the attic, when he would emerge from the piles of boxes and find little Enjolras staring into the darkness with pupils blown wide, searching for hint of friend or foe, on his toes, ready to be gone into the air  in one frantic heartbeat. Towards the end of their time together, Enjolras would glance at him and slump happily into repose again, unafraid. There was no such calm recognition now.

Enjolras’s hand had reached out blindly to find Combeferre, to hold his elbow in a vice grip. At least, Grantaire thought, he hadn’t run. Yet.

Very suddenly Courfeyrac beside the two of them skipped forward. His approach blocked Enjolras from view; Grantaire could sense the man putting himself bodily between them as he approached. “Jehan, my lovely princess, good _morning_ ,” he sang as he rounded their table, throwing an embracing arm around his friend and kissing them quickly on the head.

“I am no princess today, sweet Courfeyrac, but an alien traveler from distant stars - they and them would do today if you please.” Jehan beamed at his attention, stroking his face as it passed.

“Absolutely, my dear. And good morning to you, Joly,” he addressed the man with an exuberant sign, “and to you Bossuet. Grantaire!” That name burst through his cheerfulness like a knife. Grantaire turned to him - he had been watching Enjolras and Combeferre exchange whispers and shakes of their heads. He could watch those pretty sunwhite locks tremble till the end of time, he thought. Even if only from afar.

“Grantaire,” Courfeyrac addressed him again through a blinding smile, “I’m surprised to see you! What are you doing here?”

Grantaire snorted. _Try for a little more transparency Courf_ , he thought, _and you’ll be a window_. “I am joining your student revolution, Courfeyrac, just like you wanted me to.”

“You spoke to Enjolras, then? Settled things?” It was practically forced through Courfeyrac’s teeth.

“If he hasn’t told you himself, well, I certainly won’t go blabbing, will I?” Grantaire grinned cheekily and then sucked down another swallow from his flask, hoping Courfeyrac would fuck off in the meantime, but when he’d set his flask down again Courfeyrac was still staring over with him dazed eyes and a fake grin. “Honestly, Courf, I’m not here for any trouble. Scouts honor. Enjolras’s guard dogs can rest easy.” Really, this whole business was getting tiring. He’d rather spend his effort on Enjolras coaxing Enjolras out of his hard primordial shell (the way that he once had) than on beating off his friends.

“No guard dogs, R, just caring friends. To you as well.” Courfeyrac reached forward and lay a warm hand on Grantaire’s shoulder. His smile this time seemed at least a little more hearty and genuine. “We’re glad you’re here to find out what we’re about.”

Courfeyrac skipped back off to Combeferre and Enjolras and the three of them exchanged more incomprehensible looks. “Do they always do that,” Grantaire asked Jehan gruffly.

“Ummm, which part of it?”

“All the private conversations with their eyes. God, they’re practically fucking through the optic nerve.”

“Oh, yeah. Yep. But the same could be said for any of us, couldn’t it?” Jehan reached out to touch Grantaire’s thigh with a grin, the lilt in his tone indicating a clear attempt to lighten the mood. “Haven’t we had plenty of… nonverbal conversations?”

 _«_ _I know I have,_ _»_ Joly snarked.

“Har har,” Grantaire snarked right back. The matter between the trio seemed settled, though they all held tight and hesitant lines in their lips. Enjolras was settling into a chair, looking pointedly at corners of the ceiling - anywhere but at Grantaire, he surmised - and Combeferre was beside him pulling out a beaten notebook and a laptop. Courfeyrac sat himself directly on the table and beamed out at the group. It seemed that Grantaire’s presence would be tolerated after all - if only _tolerated_. Combeferre had a hand on Enjolras’s shoulder, gripping hard, rubbing soothing circles with his thumb.

“Morning, folks!” Courfeyrac addressed the room. “Hell of a week, am I right? How are we settling into the semester?” Grantaire slumped bitterly down into his chair. His flask was sloshing with dregs. How did getting drinks up here work, exactly?

Feuilly chuckled, first to respond to Courf’s address. “Oh, you know me, I’ve brought apples to all my teachers, polished my writing slate… Gotten a new planner, and colored pens to boot…”

“Courfeyrac, I think our elderly friend has gone senile at last, he’s fantasizing about being a schoolboy again…” The tone was convincingly dry and irate and it didn’t seem to match any of his friends - Grantaire scanned the room quizzically looking for the deadpan snarker until he found Courfeyrac elbowing Enjolras in the ribs with a jaunty grin, and Enjolras himself smiling sheepishly down at his notes with the prettiest blush lighting up his cheeks. _Oh no,_ Grantaire thought. _Please speak again. Let me hear your voice again… Let me hear you_ joke _again!_

“Very funny Enjo, but not _all_ of us here can afford the luxury of higher education… Courfeyrac’s classist insinuation rightly offends me… I got no _winter break_ from the auto shop. Harumph.” Feuilly leaned back in his chair, grinning too cheekily for his tone of mock grumpiness. Enjolras was biting down on his own smile and the flush of his face surely bled into the very air, for Grantaire could feel that warmth creep down his own neck. Discarding his now empty flask, he leaned forward onto the table on his elbows, folded hands against his mouth.

“And yet you found time to join Enjolras and Bossuet at the soup kitchen on Christmas Eve, I hear!” Combeferre broke in. “I’m glad you could join them.”  
  
“As always my love, you coordinate an excellent segue,” Courfeyrac exclaimed. “The new year is here! And it is time to schedule our new calendar of events, including following up on the volunteer opportunities Joly and Bossuet have been scouting.”    
  
And from there, Grantaire was immersed in his first official meeting of Les Amis de l’ABC. As it turned out, Eponine’s mundane prediction of saving the whales and picketing fast food corporations was even more thrilling than the actual events of a Les Amis meeting, which seemed - at least today - to include a whole lot of _scheduling_. With all this neat organization, cleanly marked calendars and civil back-and-forths (concerning things like whether it was better at this early stage of their collective to invest in long-term commitments to a few activities or to dip their toes in a larger variety of charities) Grantaire wondered whether Combeferre was jacking off under his detailed color-coordinated planner. He seemed like the type to get off to micromanagement. _Oh Courfeyrac, read my three-year graduation plan to me…_ Amused at himself, Grantaire went to nurse his flask and was irate to find it just as empty as it was fifteen minutes ago.  
  
_«_ _Is it always boring,_ _»_ Grantaire signed across the small table to Joly. He had to repeat his motions twice before Joly finally looked over at him and shrugged. The signs he returned were a little complex for Grantaire’s understanding (and were drawing looks from Courfeyrac, who was more likely to understand) so he motioned for Joly to write instead, and the boy looked anxiously back at the group. Combeferre and Bahorel were currently racing one another on their respective laptop and phone to find dirt on some shoe donation organization that Courfeyrac had heard was actually hurting the communities they donated to by stunting the local economy. Riveting stuff. Grantaire thumped the table a little, trying to get Joly’s attention back. He pulled out his sketchbook and a pen, thrusting it towards him.  
  
With a sigh, Joly opened the book, scrawled for a bit and slid it back. _The discussions in other meetings are a lot more interesting_ , it said. _Debates and stuff. We’re planning the semester’s calendar so I guess this is sort of boring. Enjolras usually talks a lot more, and that’s always exciting._  
  
Grantaire underlined the last sentence. _Yeah? He’s hardly said anything_ , he wrote, and passed it back.  
  
_Shocker!_ , Joly wrote, surrounding the word with little doodles of lightning bolts to emphasize the sarcasm.    
  
_Am I supposed to take that to mean that I’ve_ caused _this icy silence?_ Grantaire drew a simplified little version of himself pouting beside the question. Joly drew a tall dunce cap on his pouting head and passed it back with a smirk. Grantaire’s jaw dropped in mock offense and he slammed the cover of the book shut.  
  
The sharp sound drew the eyes of everyone in the room. With a squeak, Joly’s hands flew to hide his face from their stares, and Grantaire sheepishly pulled the sketchbook down to his lap, feeling like he was being caught passing notes in school again. It didn’t take but a moment for people to move on and return to their discussion, not seeming to particularly care about the minor distraction, but one set of eyes lingered upon him; Grantaire could feeling their burning stare.  
  
Enjolras was glaring, not at Grantaire’s face but somewhere in the vague direction of his shoulder, and he looked nothing short of pissed.

His noble brow was furrowed magnificently. His lush lips were twisted in an irate line. That gorgeous jaw was set hard, and Grantaire could swear that even his hair was ruffled, like something out of a ghibli movie. But when Grantaire caught him staring, his cheeks turned cherry red and he flicked his head away haughtily, hair rushing over his shoulder, and trained his eyes instead on Bahorel (whom had finally found a reputable source declaiming the whatever-it-was charity).

 _Ooooh maaaan..._ The only coherent thought that Grantaire could assemble in his head amidst the adrenalin rush, the blood rushing furiously south and the stars popping dizzily before him was, in great loud letters, **_yes more of that_**. He leaned back in his chair and set his hand tenderly upon Jehan’s thigh under the table.

Jehan looked over at him questioningly and found him still staring back at Enjolras (who was very pointedly _not_ staring back, but was flicking his eyes now and then to see whether or not Grantaire still was). Confused, they lay a hand lightly atop Grantaire’s, smoothing their fingers over the dark hair and pale little scars.

Grantaire used their other hand to reach for the flask ( _fuck_ it was _still_ empty god _damn_ it; his reckless courage would have to be genuine rather than liquid) and then withdrew it and settled it over the back of the empty chair to his other side. He took a steadying breath, squeezed Jehan’s thigh, and then began to draw his hand gently up the denim and trace little patterns with his fingers over the inside seam.

Jehan’s nearly inaudible gasp indicated that yes, this was having the desired effect… But how long would it take for this naughty Rube Goldberg machine to hit its mark? His hand crept higher still, and Jehan’s fingers clamped down upon it, but did not push it away. Grantaire smiled, pleased, and pretended to be paying attention to what Courfeyrac was saying while he caught glances of Enjolras catching glances.

For a few minutes, he let it level, content with drawing dainty swirls in the creases of Jehan’s thighs. Jehan was best worked up with a good long tease anyway. But at last, when Enjolras seemed to have finally focused back in on the conversation at hand, Grantaire slid his palm right across Jehan’s growing bulge and elicited the most _darling_ shrill squeak from his thoroughly aroused poet.

Grantaire’s heart rate spiked a little but the sound went mostly unnoticed. Bossuet gave the pair a quirked eyebrow and Feuilly tossed a smirk edged with pity. Most importantly though, Enjolras was now staring again with masked alarm at what appeared to be some spot on the wall above Jehan’s head. God yes. A little closer. _Look at me_. Grantaire shamelessly palmed Jehan’s cock through the denim, forcing them to double over with their elbows braced on the table and their lips trembling with force of their bite, and Enjolras returned to staring at _people who were not Grantaire_ but with a gaze infinitely too intense and unsettled for the topic being discussed. His lack of attention was betrayed by the way that his eyes drifted unfocused to the surface of the table in front of him. If the boy had been a cat, Grantaire thought, one mobile ear would be pointed solidly in his direction.

Grantaire worked his fingers over the shape of Jehan in their pants, rubbing at the head of their cock softly until Jehan’s eyes were screwed shut so hard he thought they might cry. They were shielding their eyes with one hand and their other trembling fist was determinedly clenching and unclenching. Enjolras looked like he very might well burn holes in the oak table with his laser eyes. Joly looked over at Jehan for a moment and then did a doubletake, screwing his eyebrows together in concern. _«_ _Aspirin?_ _»_ he signed with a sympathetic pout.  
  
_No thanks_ , Jehan mouthed, going red straight to their ears, right as Grantaire unbuttoned their fly and shoved his hand down into their underwear.

The resulting broken keen was faint and cut off with a harsh sputter, but it was unignorable. Conversation in the room ceased and nearly every head turned to stare at them in their isolated corner; Enjolras was examining the ceiling. Grantaire’s hand returned to his own lap faster than a bullet and he smiled innocently at the confusion and alarm on every face (except for Feuilly’s, which was now covered by his hands).  
  
“S-sorry, uh…” Jehan sputtered, flushed and sweating. “Hairball,” they blurted out, instant regret immediate on their face, and Grantaire had to clench his tongue sharply between his teeth to keep from crying laughing. Jehan kicked at his ankle under the table.

“Enjolras,” Courfeyrac exclaimed, and Grantaire felt like he could kiss the man. “You wanted to end the meeting with your good news! Is it time to share?”  
  
Slowly the group turned away from them and towards Enjolras. Enjolras looked back at them all and tapped his fingers nervously on the table, taking a deep steadying breath through his nose and then nodded. He even made a B+ effort to smile. Grantaire fiddled with his empty flask, watching Enjolras in wonder and anticipation.  
  
“The petition for gender neutral bathrooms in the commons that we all worked so hard on last semester garnered over 900 signatures. A modest but truly commendable show of support. I’ve been in contact with the dean about it and he has agreed to meet with me to discuss it!”  
The room erupted in whoops and cheers and a sparse little round of applause, and Enjolras beamed. Combeferre clasped his shoulder with a firm congratulatory shake and the boy leaned into it happily.

Grantaire, woozy and a little desperate for a last ditch effort in the closing moments of this meeting, could feel _stupidity_ rising like bile from his belly to his throat, sliming its way out of his mouth before he could choke it down -

“That’s fantastic! And you’ve done all the fundraising as well?” And a smirk to go with it. He was mentally kicking himself but he just couldn’t stop. 

Alert faces turned his way. He turned the flask over in his hands. Enjolras, finally, was _looking at him_. He might faint.  
  
“You know. For all that knocking-out-walls, building-bathrooms business. Sounds expensive. Feuilly, I’ve known you to dabble in architecture, have you drawn up the plans?” Warning eyes from Feuilly. Combeferre opened his mouth to speak - but Enjolras beat him to it.  
  
“Actually, there are three existing sets of bathrooms in the commons, and one proposal is to convert a pair to be neutral rather than building a new one.” His tone was steady - no, calm, but a slightly trembling - but his eyes were on Full Alert. God, in all these years those dagger eyes hadn’t changed a bit. Their wounds upon him felt like a god-given blessing. “No construction necessary.”Fuck texting, fuck joining his merry band, and fuck distracting him with public sex - Apparently _this_ was the way to get Enjolras’s attention. He felt breathless with adrenalin. God, think of something else to say, Grantaire, you are _never_ short for contention.

“Ah, it makes sense now! You would replace those age-old little stick figures with signs indicating ‘with urinals’ and ‘without’. Fuck gender, and endeavor to sort them by anatomy instead! I like that plan. Get us out of our heads and bring us down to our bodies, pure and simple. Please the conservatives and the liberals at the same time.”  
  
“There would be no _sorting_. The signs of gender are a command; the signs of bathroom equipment are a passive invitation. They both possess stalls, and that privacy is all that matters in the end. One could use whichever they chose.”  
  
The heads in the room were bouncing from Grantaire to Enjolras and back again like a tennis match. “We human beings are creatures of enduring habits, Enjolras!” The name vibrated in his mouth. It was not the first time he had used it, but the first time he had used it to the boy’s face. He wondered if that meant anything to him. “Could you expect any frantic student, bladder full and seams popping, to decide, ‘this is the day when i deviate from the path I have carved on this campus I have traversed for the duration of my years of education - this is the day when I explore a bathroom previously forbidden to me, for the sake of gender nonconformity!’ Preposterous. Our fellow students will use the same bathrooms they have always used, and they’ll remain as segregated as they ever have. A change in signage my ass.”

Grantaire could _feel_ Enjolras buzzing. He’d gone red in the face and his hands were fists. The tension in the room was rising and he saw Courfeyrac and Combeferre both extend a hand to touch their friend - “You have no _stake_ in this, why _argue_?” Enjolras burst. “You’re cis! Why do you _care_?” Enjolras looked close to killing.  
  
“Why do you?” And Grantaire begged for that sweet homicide. Regret sunk into his core faster and harder than fire whiskey. Holy shit, there was no way out of that one. Enjolras looked punched. The anger drained from his face. Fear replaced it. If going back in time six seconds for the chance to say _literally anything else_ involved a deal with the devil for his first born child, his right arm and all his painting supplies, he would take it in a heartbeat.

 Enjolras took another deep breath, bringing his hands to his lap. Combeferre opened his mouth but Enjolras cut him off. “Why are you even here,” he asked.  
  
Grantaire felt smacked.  
  
Courfeyrac and Combeferre were both staring at Enjolras now rather than Grantaire; with brows furrowed, they looked taken aback, even offended.  
  
Grantaire shrugged, trying to swallow the lump in his throat and still the shaking of his hands. He really had deserved that, after all. Slowly he ambled to his feet - the ground swayed under him, forcing him to grip his chair for support until he could walk. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he replied. “I suppose that’s my cue to see myself out.” He even forced a grin to make the whole ordeal look a little less uncomfortable.  
  
Like the good friends and mediators they were, as he shuffled around the table Feuilly and Courfeyrac both drew out chairs and struck up chatter in an attempt to move the group on from that… hideous little event. Collectively the group covered up his exit with harried discussions of Saturday night drinking plans. Grantaire imagined suggesting that they focus their charity efforts on disaster relief - they were certainly good enough at it. 

Of single mind, he kept his eyes trained on the door and the shameful walk towards it probably took about three hours. Thank Mother Mary that no one was staring. Well, he imagined so at least - he wasn’t looking to know for sure. But a chair was scraping behind him, and just as he passed through the doorway onto the top of the stairs, a hand landed gently as a bird upon his arm. He considered shrugging it off and making a run for it, Enjolras-style, but convinced himself to slow to a stop and turn. He prayed it was Jehan, coming to take him home.

Instead he found Enjolras. Grantaire practically inhaled his tongue. Enjolras looked smaller than ever, twisting his pale hands together - blue veins twisted like tangled threads under cold rosy skin - a memory ghosted through him of holding one of those fragile hands in his own sweaty palm - the sensation like a frail baby starling in his hand that he had returned to its nest one childhood summer… Enjolras cleared his throat and Grantaire was brought back to the present.  
  
“I -”  
  
“Sorry,” Grantaire interjected quietly. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Coming here, or opening my mou-”  
  
“I don’t understand,” Enjolras interrupted. “This - Les Amis, we - We are trying to change things. To uncorr- to change the world.” His voice shook. “I thought that that was something you believed in.”

Grantaire, as he so often had when he looked at Enjolras, felt lost. Afloat in the universe. A crumble of rock in space, drifting in orbit around one glorious, blazing sun.  
  
“You were mistaken,” he replied hoarsely. Campus activism groups? Petitions? This little lump of scattered students (plus Feuilly), picketing and papering and having bullshit little debates? Jehan and Feuilly had battled enough hardship of substance in their lives, waded through darkness and found enough genuine meaning and purpose and depth, that he could not fathom why they wasted their time with this shallow little volunteer club. There were lives to be lived, and not wasted scratching at the great brick wall of humanity’s indifference.

But Grantaire had believed in something, once. For a time in his young life he had had faith in one small brave miracle.

“I believe in _you_ ,” Grantaire finished, and with a weary sigh and cheeks growing ruddy he turned and trudged down the stairs. There was nothing in the world he wanted to see less than more of Enjolras’s judgment and contempt. When at the bottom of the stairs he risked to glance over his shoulder, he found the stairwell and the doorway empty. Now at last he could go home and find himself another drink or ten.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because what kind of e/R slow burn fic would it be if they weren't assholes to each other for at least a little while. Don't worry, they're both being *dicks* here and they both know it and they'll both be better... later.
> 
> See you in April!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Enjolras and Grantaire are driven further apart, Jehan, Combeferre and Courfeyrac draw closer together...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK OK OK this is the real one I fucking promise lmfao.  
> When I set my return date for April 1st did you legit expect me to not do anything
> 
> Actual real warnings for this actual real chapter: Smoking, alcohol, sex, like seriously this chapter is 75% sex, dom/sub undertones and implications

Enjolras was acutely aware that the seven other people in the room were _not_ looking at him.

They were looking at one another, chattering at their respective tables, filling the space with brightly pronounced drivel. Feuilly and Bahorel had joined Combeferre and Courfeyrac at the larger, central table and Joly, Bossuet and Jehan remained tucked in a corner. They were doing their best to allow him a curtain of privacy, if only atmospheric.

Courfeyrac, sweet and concerned Courfeyrac, dared sneak a look in his direction, where he stood away from the door looking dazed and lost. Refusing to meet Courfeyrac’s eyes Enjolras instead pulled his phone from his pocket, opened his text thread with Cosette, and hovered his thumbs over the keys on the screen.  
  
_I thought that that was something you believed in._

 _You were mistaken. I believe in_ you _._

Enjolras gripped his phone in his trembling hands for a moment longer, and then closed the screen without typing a word and returned it to his pocket. This wasn’t something he could fire off in a single text. “Grantaire came to the meeting and got .2 seconds from outing me like i fucking knew he would”? “Grantaire showed up drunk and belligerent and I can’t believe how much I hate this man right now, who used to be my fucking world”? “I thought Grantaire would be proud of me, why isn’t he proud of me, he could have kicked me in the teeth and it wouldn’t have hurt this much”? “Grantaire said he believes in me, I think I’m going to die, Cosette I feel unhinged”? “Grantaire said he believes in me but not in what I do - what does that fucking mean!!!”

_How can one know this, know that all men are born with love and corrupted with hatred, and not feel in themselves a desperate obligation to uncorrupt the world? You interrupt my ignorant, vengeful bliss with a terrible hope._

_Are you separate from all of us?_

_I believe in_ you _._

Silently Enjolras wandered back through the room, feeling driven by a vague but desperate aim. He passed the central table where Courfeyrac reached out to touch his hand, and he grasped it in return and let it go without stopping. He made his way to the table in the corner.

“Could I speak to Prouvaire privately?”

Joly and Bossuet ceased their conversation and looked up at the boy. They looked between themselves, and then at Jehan, who was looking back wide-eyed and red as apples.

“Of course,” Bossuet allowed with an inviting gesture. He took Joly’s hand and they went to join the rest of the group at the central table.

Enjolras chose his seat deliberately. It was still warm with Grantaire’s heat. _Don’t think of the heat of his body, of the way you once let him hold you._ He wrung his hands in his lap and smoothed them over the tops of his thighs.

“Are you alright?” Jehan asked, almost a whisper. Enjolras met their eyes and shrugged. They nodded in understanding. “I’m so sorry,” they pleaded. “I didn’t want him to come and I advised that he stay home. He was ridiculously hung-over, and still drinking, and I don’t know what he was thinking… But Enjolras, I implore you, he’s out of his mind, he doesn’t know what he’s done… Or, well, he _does_ but he… He will regret this so much, Enjolras. I swear.”

Enjolras listened in silence. He considered his inquiry carefully.

"You’re close to him.”

“I…” Jehan opened and closed their mouth, and then rolled their chapped pink lip between their teeth. “Yes, I am. I feel torn. I love you both very dearly. I’m not sure what’s happening between you two - what’s happened - and I don’t know where it puts me. I love him. I don’t know what’s _wrong_ with him.”

“I’d never ask you to choose,” Enjolras rushed to say, “Things should never come to that. That’s not what this is about.” He took a slow breath, wishing that he had something to do with his  nervous hands, something other than wringing and twisting them until they bruised. “You’ve known him a while?”

“We met a few years ago… I was dating this bastard, a foster brother of his, so I came around the house often that summer. The house where Grantaire lived.”

Enjolras flinched at the mention of it. He shut his eyes to the fleeting images of a dirty overgrown backyard, peeling red paint, a dusty attic, a great rose window. What foster brother had Jehan involved themself with? Surely not that serpent of a boy that Enjolras remembered… Perhaps someone who came after, anyone but Montparnasse. Sweet Jehan did not deserve that.

“We met again the year before last. We’ve been inseparable since. He lives with me, though I suppose you know that… I’ve never shared my bed with a better man.”

“What is he… like?”

“What’s he _like_?” The question caught Jehan off guard.

Enjolras shrugged again, trying to bring himself to shake less. “I… lived there too. That house. A foster. I used to know him. He was only fifteen when I left, I was eleven, and I feel I’ve remembered him… all wrong. I just… What is he like now?”

Jehan nodded, taking in that confession and considering. “Well… Grantaire is…” After a moment of pondering they smiled to themself. “Grantaire is wild.” They chuckled softly.

Enjolras’s eyes widened.

“Grantaire is a wild thing,” Jehan continued. “Passionate in every one of his contradictions. He’s hopelessly cynical, he believes in nothing, and it’s not a position I can admire; but it seems to me that though he professes to have no faith in anything, least of all himself, he is yet unendingly faithful. Er, do you mind?”

Enjolras shook his head, and Jehan lit the cigarette they’d pulled from a crumpled pack in their sweater. Looking over their friends across the room, engaged and laughing, Jehan took a drag and exhaled dreamy clouds. “Faithful, yes. The things we talk of here - ideas and philosophy, bread for the hungry, the moving world - Grantaire prefers a good story, a clever joke, a half-remembered midnight confessional between lovers. This, the altar he serves.” Jehan nodded thoughtfully to themself. Enjolras hummed. He knew that he could trust Jehan for a thoughtful poem on the nature of their mutual… Grantaire.

“Likewise, Grantaire will hear nothing of mankind, that cold and terrible beast, to hear him say it… but he loves men. He loves me, loves Bahorel and Feuilly and Eponine. Joly too now, and Bossuet. Faith in us. Faith in the present, and none in the future. It’s a worthy investment, I’d concede, to be happy now, rather than happy later. Though I did once beg him to come here, I think the truth is that he would find it a waste of his time. Grantaire wouldn’t volunteer with us except for our sake as his friends. He’d rather drink with us, make merry with us, enjoy today with us, than try to change tomorrow. Grantaire hardly plans for the sun to rise again after it sets each night, let alone that some mark he makes could change the future eternally.”

Enjolras furrowed his brow. “A selfish and hedonistic train of thought,” he replied. “If he won’t take responsibility for the good he could do, does he take responsibility for the ill?”

“Grantaire does take responsibility for his good. When I say he loves me I’m not talking of poetry and roses. He holds me in the night when things are dark outside and inside and I am unlovable. He doesn’t judge me, even when I do things worthy of judgment. He stays by me. He gives me his time, his thoughts, his laughter, his comfort, his own sadness, his own darkness, his trust. That’s how he loves me. Grantaire would say that he’s good for nothing. I might not be here if he was good for nothing.” Jehan took another drag, pulling a glass ashtray across the table towards themself. “Given the chance, Grantaire would sleep through the revolution. He’s no lieutenant for your future army. But he has more worth than he knows... He cannot love the world like you do. But he would love you.” They tapped their cigarette against the ashtray, watching sparks and cinders fall. “I think that’s enough.” They brought it to their lips again and hesitated. “He is a cynic and a drunk, he is arbitrary and contrary, he is absurd, and he makes mistakes, and he disappoints. But he is a lover; of art, of alcohol, of literature, of life, of tender night time moments, of the adrenalin of barfights, of friendship that flows like wine, of Paris, and of me. And I think that’s enough.”

Enjolras turned away from Jehan’s smoke and into his shoulder, taking it in. _He cannot love the world like you do. But he would love you._

 _You were mistaken. I believe in_ you _._

Jehan blew a careful smoke ring, grinning softly as it drifted from their lips and dissipated. “Did I tell you what you wanted to know? I could rave about his prowess in the bedroom too, if you like.”  
  
Enjolras turned scarlet. “Yes and no thank you,” he said, hastily picking himself up and sidling away around the table.

Jehan laughed behind him as he sauntered off. “Ask me anything, Enjolras, I’m an open book,” they called, punctuating the offer with another smoke ring.

\---------------------------

**[From: _Enjo_ 22:08]**

>> _feuilly sorry its kinda late and youre probably out having fun but can I ask you something very private_

**[From: _Feuilly_ 22:16]**

>> _sorry the corinthe is rlly loud i didnt hear my phone go off  
_ >> _no yeah bro what’s up? you aight?_

**[From: _Enjo_ 22:16]**

>> _yeah. you guys having fun?_

**[From: _Feuilly_ 22:16]**

>> _yeah, wish you were here! courf and bahorel are havin a dance off… ngl, bahorel is the better dancer but he’s about three times as drunk… gonna be a tough call… but bro whats up with you, ask away_

**[From: _Enjo_ 22:17]**

>> _ok… you were a foster, right?_

**[From: _Feuilly_ 22:18]**

>> _yeah, for a bit. my abuela died when i was 17. she was my only relative, so. yeah. spent almost year with a shit foster family and then moved tf on when i turned 18. nbd._

**[From: _Enjo_ 22:19]**

>> _didn’t you say you were a foster with grantaire?_

**[From: _Feuilly_ 22:21]**

>> _oh uh, yeah! that’s how we met and all, he was a foster in the same house. he came and found me again when he came to paris for school and we’ve been tight since then. idk whats up with him but he’s a good dude, enjo. when he tries_

**[From: _Enjo_ 22:22]**

>> _mm. with the thenardiers right_

**[From: _Feuilly_ 22:22]**

>> _yeah? you know about that? i guess… didnt you know him?_

**[From: _Enjo_ 22:22]**

>> _I lived there too_

**[From: _Feuilly_ 22:23]**

>> _oh shit… seriously? with the thenardiers????_

**[From: _Enjo_ 22:24]**

>> _yeah… for like 9ish years_

**[From: _Feuilly_ 22:26]**

>> _fuck, what a crazy coincidence, wow… we must have just missed each other, huh. i knew there were fosters before me but they didnt talk much about them_  
>> _:( im sorry tho. that place fucks you up. nobody came out of that hellhole ok. i was only there for like a year and i try to forget it_

**[From: _Enjo_ 22:28]**

>> _did you stay in the attic_

**[From: _Feuilly_ 22:29]**

>> _hm? no? nah, I stayed in that ugly green room with mont. you mustve known mont right, he was there for a long time i think? creepy little fuck, jehan dated him for like two years or something… grrrrrrross  
_ >> _this is the weirdest coincidence, damn..._

**[From: _Enjo_ 22:30]**

>> _:/_

**[From: _Feuilly_ 22:31]**

>> _but nah yeah, R stayed in the attic_

**[From: _Enjo_ 22:34]**

>> _oh_

**[From: _Feuilly_ 22:39]**

>> _soooo… if i can change the subject back to our friends for a sec… do you know what’s going on here?? [image attached]_

**[From: _Enjo_ 22:40]**

>> _ >_> dont ask me, i didnt even kno ferre and courf were a thing until like 2 months ago  
_>> _apparently i’m bad at reading signals… but that sure does look like a thing that is happening, even by my account_

**[From: _Feuilly_ 22:41]**

>> _oh shit they’re leaving together_  
>> _all three of them  
_ >> _lmfao…………… welp………. cheers!_

_\-----------------------------_

“So umm… Who sits in the back? You should sit in the back with me. Wait, no, then it’ll be like ‘Ferre is chauffeuring us. That’s weird. I’ll sit in the -”

“ _WAIT Don’t open that door_!”

“What? Oh, shit, it’s -”

“Yeah, it’s busted. It’s literally duct taped shut. Make fun of it all you want, ‘Ferre deserves it.”

“Hey! Some of us worked to buy our very own first cars like industrious and responsible young adults. Summers at the library can’t exactly buy me a Lexus.”

“Yeah, and some of us take the metro just fine. Jehan if you’re gonna sit back there, be careful on sharp turns. There’s no guarantee it won’t throw you out. Ha.”

“Haha!”

“No really. He’s not kidding. Wear your seat belt.”

“...Oh.”

Courfeyrac pulled open the rear door and guided shivering Jehan down into the backseat. If they leaned a little heavily into his steady embrace, he pretended not to notice, and not to savor their weight against his chest or the heady aroma of their apple blossom perfume. The growling hunger in his belly could wait until they were home, safe and locked inside Combeferre’s apartment together; until then, he could maintain his composure. Only then could he devour.

Once secured inside Jehan turned back to flash a quivering grin to Courfeyrac. The turn of their head tossed the rose gold curls that fell from their carefully pinned halo braid, and streetlamp glow had their freckles and the wintery clouds of their breath shimmering in the dark. For a moment, Courfeyrac could see himself gripping their shoulder, pushing them down onto the cracking vinyl upholstery, crawling over their body, using broad hands to push up the aggressively sultry skirt they’d changed into for their night on the town…

“Courf? Are you coming? It’s freezing.” Combeferre was already strapping into the driver’s seat and Courfeyrac broke from his fantasy. He skipped through puddles of slush around to the passenger’s seat and shut himself inside.

When the three of them were buckled Combeferre pulled his creaking car away from the Corinthe curbside and directed it towards home. Courfeyrac took a shuddering breath. Anxiously, he flipped down the visor to check his hair in the mirror, sweeping fingers through the dark waves. Behind him in the reflection he caught Jehan’s blue siren stare upon him from the swaths of shadows and yellow-magenta city lights, and Mother in Heaven, like he hadn’t already been half-hard all evening anticipating the night to come. He had asked Jehan without planning, without careful drafts and rewrites of his invitation in his head, had simply popped the question with the starlet on his lap and Combeferre’s eyes on them from down the bar. Jehan’s stunned, half-whispered _yes, yes, yes_ had nearly blown his self-control right there. They couldn’t have made it out of the bar more quickly if they’d rehearsed it. This wasn’t his first time, and hell it wasn’t even his first threesome, but under Jehan’s low gaze he felt like a nervous virgin all over again, and that wasn’t a sensation he’d suffered since he was fourteen - if even then. No, Courfeyrac had never entertained any performance anxiety the way he did tonight; but he wasn’t sure he’d entertained a more insatiable and uncontrollable lust either. It was paralleled only by the day he’d met Combeferre in person for the first time.

Combeferre slid a hand over to rest reassuringly upon Courfeyrac’s thigh, smoothing itself over painted-on jeans. He took the hand gladly in his own and rubbed one thumb in little circles into Combeferre’s knuckles. Courfeyrac studied their joined skin with a soft smile, gold on bronze, and imagined Jehan’s ivory laid over them both. Soon, so soon. This was real.

Courfeyrac had had his fair share of pre-sex car rides back from bars and clubs to his place or theirs, and in memory they were easy to glaze over with the events that followed, but in lived moments they were rarely less than restless. There was always the pressure in the company of strangers to maintain the facade that seduced them in the first place. Traffic lights invited small talk and passing disinterest in one another’s lives or careers or even the weather. But tonight was unlike any of those nights, Courfeyrac observed as Combeferre withdrew his hand to fiddle with the heat. Jehan watched the traffic and the passerby, and Courfeyrac draped an arm behind Combeferre’s neck and settled into a comfortable quiet. A siren sounded in the distance. Jehan wasn’t going anywhere, required no seduction, no facades. Combeferre was unwaveringly his. They had no illusions about the nature of Courfeyrac, his moods and his recklessness, his unattractive moments of self-pity and self-doubt, his bad habits and his dubious regard for the law, his inclination to polyamory… and yet they were here, his friends, his adored lovers. Courfeyrac looked across to Combeferre. His boyfriend’s regal profile was silhouetted by the neon green of a liquor store sign, the planes of his noble cheekbones glowing irridescent, and Courfeyrac found himself blushing hot.

When they arrived at Combeferre’s artfully crumbling old building, Courfeyrac helped Jehan out onto the sidewalk while Combeferre fished for his keys. Jehan entwined their fingers with Courfeyrac’s as they climbed the inner stairwell, and though they avoided his eyes, they smiled as though they were incapable of stopping. When they came to the short landing outside Combeferre’s door, Combeferre stopped and turned to address the others.

“A few things,” he started nervously, scratching the back of his head and then folding his hands together. Courfeyrac’s stomach fluttered. Combeferre was never nervous anymore. Not when it came to this. Combeferre was _anything_ but nervous these days, and he knew he’d watch his man step through the door and see it all fall away. Knowing that, he could only find this return to clumsy sweetness endearing.

“Really it ought to go without saying, but it’s worth reiterating - anyone can tap out at any time. I mean that. There’s no point at which you aren’t welcome to change your mind… Jehan?” Combeferre adjusted his glasses and looked to their guest.

Jehan looked exhilarated. “I appreciate the courtesy, Combeferre, and I assure you, I am here for the full ride.” They punctuated their pun with a cheeky wink, and Combeferre’s lips curled as he blushed. Courfeyrac squeezed Jehan’s hand and felt a wave of arousal sink low into his abdomen, trying not to envision the unsubtle innuendo.

“Glad to know it, but don’t forget that you don’t have to be. Second thing; For now, this changes nothing about our current arrangements. We can, er, cross all those bridges when we come to them. No promises beyond tonight.”

Courfeyrac tensed, nodding lightly although the statement wasn’t meant for him. Jehan paused and then nodded their own confirmation. “Of course!” they affirmed; perhaps with a little too much brightness.

And with that, Combeferre closed his eyes - Courfeyrac watched him take a deep, full breath in through his nose and release it steadily - and when he opened them again, there was nothing in them but calm repose and confidence. “Shall we?” He turned and let them all inside.

Combeferre’s apartment was shadowed and empty. The taller man discarded his coat on the coatrack wordlessly and Courfeyrac couldn’t help but admire his broad back and neatly tapered waist as his boyfriend made his way to the kitchenette, illuminating a dim lamp as he went. It cast them all in enough warm light to see each other by while preserving the _atmosphere_. Courfeyrac bit his lip giddily, counting out heartbeats to stay his patience. He gripped Jehan’s hand and stood in front of the closed door, and after a moment looked down to Jehan to observe  how they were doing.

Jehan’s eyes were fixed quizzically on Combeferre and for the first time in all of this Courfeyrac read nervousness in the way they clutched their free hand to their chest and rocked gently from one foot to another. “You alright?” Courfeyrac whispered, rubbing their hand soothingly.

Jehan nodded, distracted. They intently watched as Combeferre draw out a long, elegant bottle of ruby red wine and poured a crystal glass. A playful, faux-innocent smile broke over their face. “Are you going to offer us any?” they ventured.

Combeferre turned slowly. He rested a hip against the counter and returned a smirk before taking a long, slow sip of his wine, savoring the taste. He lowered it when he was finished. “No.”  

Jehan’s eyes widened and at so close a distance Courfeyrac could hear the hitch in their breath. Their lips parted around the start of a question that didn’t escape their mouth. Courfeyrac’s own nerves were wired electric by that low and firm tone, the vibrations of that command through his veins, and he thrummed with the anticipation of permission and guidance. It was curious how now with Jehan in the room Courfeyrac was able to see Combeferre through fresh eyes and witness as though for the first time all the beautiful things that Courfeyrac had taught him; or, really, had brought out in him; that heavy tone and all that came with it had surely always laid dormant in the man.

Combeferre strode at his leisure around the couch and settled down into the cushions, draping one arm over the back and neatly folding his legs. He looked so gorgeously dignified in repose, composed in the way that made Courfeyrac squirm, and as he sipped languorously from his wine again he peered at Jehan and Courfeyrac over his narrow lenses. This was a man in no hurry; a man who intended to make use of the breadth of the night. After he cleaned the taste from his lips he lowered his glass. “Go ahead,” he said to Jehan. “Kiss him.”

Jehan released Courfeyrac’s hand. When they turned to him they seemed tenderly shocked, if such a thing were possible; warm flushed face, trembling hands yet cold from the night chill, freckles stark on their milky skin like galaxies spiraling around their still blue eyes. They raised their hands reverently and ghosted them over Courfeyrac’s arms, came to settle with palms pressed to the fluttering pulse in his throat, and invited him to descend upon them. Descend he did. Laying his own hands on their fragile ribs he closed his eyes and brought their waiting mouths together.

The taste of Jehan’s tongue combined sweet mixers with bitter brew and the same pomegranate lip gloss that Courfeyrac remembered; the taste he had chased in his dreams and woken longing for, had smeared away with the taste of Combeferre in its stead. With his boyfriend’s steady and unaffected gaze heavy on his body he wound arms around Jehan, pulled them in to hold heartbeats together, sank his tongue between Jehan’s lips and wove his fingers into copper braids. Tonight, this sweet and wild thing was his; if only for tonight.

As they kissed, Jehan smoothed their hands down over Courfeyrac’s ample chest, pawing at him just the way he loved on their journey south. Their fingers caught in his belt loops and then reached around to grasp at his ass. Courfeyrac chuckled softly into Jehan’s mouth - that was always the first place people went when permitted - it really was alluring, he supposed - and his laughter caused Jehan to break from him with nervous giggles and press their foreheads together, brushing eyelashes against his face, laughing sweetly.

Courfeyrac glanced over at Combeferre with an elated smile. His boyfriend was smirking into his wine again, shifting his legs together, and Courfeyrac took note of the tight swell of his slacks - not so unaffected after all, but ever patient and in control. Combeferre cocked an eyebrow and drank deeply. Courfeyrac read it for the prompt that it was.

Without warning he caught Jehan’s hips in a bruising grip, swooping in to catch their mouth in a vicious kiss again, and maneuvered them bodily backwards until their calves hit the end of the coffee table. Jehan’s arms fell from around Courfeyrac’s torso as they stumbled back, gasping in soft surprise and sitting hard on the table’s edge. Before they could quite balance themselves Courfeyrac grabbed them roughly by the waist again and shoved them backwards along the surface, pushing books out of the way into heaps on the floor, even tossing an empty mug onto the carpet with a thump. Combeferre presided over the chaos without reaction. Courfeyrac fisted one hand in Jehan’s tight dress and pushed down slow till they lay flat with their back against the table. Jehan by this point was gasping and red with shock and, Courfeyrac dared to hope, with arousal.  He climbed upon the table himself, bracing their thighs with his knees and their shoulders with his forearms, and took a moment to hover above them and breathe as he checked their face for signs that he had gone too far too quickly. “This good?” he whispered, grinning breathlessly.  
  
For an instant Jehan made no reply, and Courfeyrac’s already thumping heart seemed to miss a beat with worry, but his fears were calmed as Jehan nodded hurriedly and flung their arms around his neck once more to pull him back into frenzied kissing. Once engaged again their hands began to wander, smoothing over his muscular shoulders and biceps and down to the dip of his waist. There was too much air between his body and Jehan’s and he ached to press them close, but their precarious position on the coffee table made it all too difficult. Instead he abandoned Jehan’s lips, bitten tender and raw, and pressed his mouth to explore their sensitive throat and suck yellow-violet marks.

 _Thump, thump_. One after the other, Combeferre’s feet came down upon the wood, one crossed over the other, quite close to Jehan’s head. It almost made Courfeyrac laugh into Jehan’s collarbone - Combeferre never usually tolerated feet on his furniture, much less _shoes_ , but of course he’d find it acceptable as a display of casual dominance. He snuck a glance and found the man still calmly reclined and close to the end of his wine. Pressing wet kisses to the bare skin of Jehan’s upper chest as Jehan’s hands mussed his hair, he made pleading puppy dog eyes through dark, fluttering eyelashes at Combeferre to beg for direction.

Combeferre took mercy on him. “Jehan,” he called lightly, “May Courfeyrac suck you off?” _Fuck YEAH_.

Jehan nodded frantically again, craning their neck to meet the man’s eyes. “Yes,” they hissed out. “Please.”

Courfeyrac hid his grin against Jehan’s chest. Carefully they shuffled down between Jehan’s legs, now lingering above their stomach, and admired the evident shape of their cock through the tight fabric. Little flickers of nervousness tangled in his stomach as he leaned down daringly to press a sweet kiss against it. Without lifting his head he glanced to find Jehan’s reaction, but the smaller one’s eyes were closed in bliss and they merely sighed contentedly and carded fingers through his hair.

Courfeyrac scooted further back until he’d crawled off of the table entirely. He kneeled at its edge and gripped Jehan’s parted thighs to pull them closer, and Jehan compliantly draped their legs over Combeferre’s sturdy shoulders. Combeferre watched over it all and Courfeyrac found clarity of mind enough to wonder how in the hell the man hadn’t touched himself yet; Courfeyrac was squirming in his jeans desperately already.

Jehan’s high-pitched whine reminded Courfeyrac of his task. Patting Jehan’s thighs he urged them to lift their hips so that he could pull the skirt of their snug dress up and let it bunch around their waist. Jehan wriggled to comply, revealing a lovely confection of satin and lace that would only barely have contained them at ease; swelled to full hardness it was a nuisance of a scrap that did nothing to restrain the length of their sweet pink cock, which Courfeyrac leaned in to kiss again. He pressed his mouth in repeated marks all the way up the length of it, making Jehan shiver and jerk above him, until he wrapped his lips around the very tip to suckle away the wet beads gathering there. “You have the _cutest_ cock I’ve ever seen,” he declared, nuzzling into it. “It’s adorable and I want to pet it forever. Maybe put a bow on it… Lick whipped cream off of it… Mm…”

“Courfeyrac, that’s enough chatter.” Combeferre swooped in beside him just to fist a hand in the back of Courfeyrac’s hair and press his head down between Jehan’s legs, the satisfied smile on the man’s face never so much as wavering. “It is cute though,” he added thoughtfully. Courfeyrac sighed happily against Jehan’s thighs and guided his tongue along their cock, first in one long, slow sweep and then in rigorous swirls that had Jehan panting and their hips twitching. “Better,” Combeferre concluded and stood, releasing Courfeyrac’s hair and moving away so that Courfeyrac couldn’t see him anymore. He took to his job with enthusiastic vigor and filled his mouth greedily with cock.

Jehan’s hands remained in his hair, yanking and relaxing unpredictably, while Courfeyrac rocked his head up and down between their thighs in a steady rhythm. He pulled off after a moment and wound his fingers around the scrap of lace still tangled around them. “Can I take these off?” Jehan nodded and lifted their knees to help.

“Sounds like someone’s talking when their mouth should be full,” Combeferre’s voice rang out threateningly as he came back into view. He tossed a small bottle towards Courfeyrac and he dropped the panties in a hurry to catch it. “Maybe if you can’t manage one task at a time, I shouldn’t trust you with two…”

It was pathetic how quickly and easily Combeferre could take Courfeyrac from “cheeky and playful” to “desperate to please”.  It wasn’t a headspace he wanted to slip into tonight, not with Jehan here, and so he took care to keep his clarity; but all the same the man’s tone of voice had him eager for approval, and he did not bother to respond, knowing that he could please his ‘Ferre more by taking Jehan’s pretty cock back down his throat without hesitation and slicking his fingers with the lube he’d been offered.

Combeferre took a seat on the couch and leaned over Jehan. His hair had slipped from its neatly combed style and hung down over his forehead. It was his sexiest look, Courfeyrac was certain. “Is it alright if Courfeyrac preps you,” Combeferre was asking somewhere over his head.

“Yes, yes,” Jehan returned, voice high and trembling. “Combeferre?”

“Mm?”

“Y-you haven’t touched me yet.”

The two of them went quiet, and Courfeyrac was dying with curiosity. He couldn’t stop himself from pulling up slowly and observing.

Combeferre, with a broad brown hand coming to cup Jehan’s cheek (so large beside their face that it cradled their jaw and a portion of their soft, quivering throat), bent down and kissed Jehan soundly. From this angle Courfeyrac could only see Combeferre’s tilted profile, and he was jealous even now of their embrace.

Suddenly, Jehan’s hand seized in his hair. At first he took it for a demand, but before he had time to comply, Jehan was squirming roughly and then shoving Combeferre away and rocketing into a sitting position, eyes wide and jaw dropped. “What the _fuck_ was that!?” they cried, and Combeferre and Courfeyrac were stone still and both looking on the edge of panic. Courfeyrac glanced nervously between the two above him.

Jehan reached out viper-quick and captured Combeferre’s jaw in his hand, yanking rudely so that his mouth gaped open. There was no anger in Jehan’s eyes, Courfeyrac quickly assessed, no fear or offense; only shock and disbelief.

“Oh my god,” they whispered. Combeferre pulled his face away, rubbing at his jaw and looking put off - but at the same moment, realization dawned upon him and Courfeyrac both.

“You didn’t know?” Combeferre purred, amused. Courfeyrac hid his laughter against Jehan’s thigh.

“ _No I didn’t know_!” Jehan squealed. “When did _that_ happen?”

“It’s been pierced since I was… Fifteen? Sixteen?” Combeferre grinned, catching the end of the bar - a small golden star - between his teeth. He released it, rolling it on his tongue, and chuckled. “Teenage impulse. I’ve had a few of those. You can thank Courfeyrac for this one, honestly. He mentioned how sexy he found tongue piercings, and like the lovestruck fool I was, I went and had it done the very next day… Didn’t have the courage to actually _tell_ him for a good year and a half though, ha. Do you like it?”

Jehan stared, dumbfounded. “How did I never…”

Combeferre shrugged. “People don’t expect it, so they just don’t see it. Don’t feel bad. It’s not as though you’ve ever before been this intimately acquainted with my tongue.” He reached out and caressed Jehan’s jaw once more. “Would you still like to be?”

Jehan didn’t even bother to nod their consent this time, merely leaning forward into the touch and crashing their lips together once more.

Courfeyrac spent a long moment simply watching. His boyfriend was twice the size of the little poet and Jehan submitted so easily to him, whimpering helplessly into his mouth, spine curving and shoulders folding to rend them even smaller beneath him. They swayed into one another driven by unconcealable lust. God what an image they made together, the two sexiest creatures Courfeyrac had encountered on this earth connected at the tongue. He had supposed that this triad had been for his benefit alone; not that Combeferre wouldn’t have minded a taste of Jehan, but that he might not have sought it out of his own accord; but what Courfeyrac was watching was no performance for  his benefit, and it made him wonder.

Jehan broke the kiss to look down at him. “Enjoying yourself?” they giggled. “I thought you were given a task…”

Courfeyrac jumped, fumbling with the lube bottle. “Sorry sweetheart,” he whispered, littering their knees with apologetic kisses. “You two were just too pretty to take my eyes from.” While Jehan and Combeferre went back to their passionate necking, Courfeyrac focused on his mission. He coated his fingers with a little more lube and brought them to stroke gently over the line of Jehan’s ass. What a _sweet_ peach. He leaned in and gave Jehan’s bobbing cock a few wet kisses. “Jehan?” He called quietly. “Lie back again?”

Jehan complied, but they wrapped their arms around Combeferre’s neck and dragged him down with them. Certainly fair enough. Now granted better access, Courfeyrac pressed a finger experimentally inside and met little resistance. He kissed absentmindedly at the sensitive skin where buttock met thigh as he plied the finger in and out.

Jehan tangled their fingers in Combeferre’s woefully short hair, panting happily against his mouth. Their heels slipped against the smooth surface of the table as they spread their legs needily, pressing back against Courfeyrac’s hand. “I can take more,” they whined. “I don’t need much prep… Please…”

Combeferre chuckled and stroked a hand over their hair, which had fallen loose from its pins and was now two wild unbound braids. “You will. Be patient Jehan, we have all night.”

“I will? What, are you gentlemen planning on doublestuffing me?” The minx cooed the obscene suggestion with a shameless grin. Combeferre’s eyes widened and his cheeks colored, his dominating facade almost scratched.

Courfeyrac had listened to the exchange with two fingers buried in Jehan and mouth enveloping their cock once more. He pulled away to smirk - “Trust me, you won’t need that,” - and then took the pretty piece as far down his throat as he could go and pushed a third finger in beside the others. The resulting gasp sent waves of pleasure rippling to his groin.

Combeferre hovered over Jehan, still playing contentedly with their hair. His face still burned bright - perhaps brighter, with the addition of Courfeyrac’s comment - but he had captured some composure once more. He leaned down to murmur low in Jehan’s ear. “As much as I’m sure you love being on display on this table, I think it’s time we took things to bed, don’t you?”

Jehan’s body rolled under Courfeyrac’s hands, their excitement passing from the heave of their ribs down to the curl of their toes. “Will you carry me?”

Combeferre’s attempt at sternness in his consideration melted into softness like butter. What a sucker, Courfeyrac thought, beaming at Jehan’s tender and hopeful expression. Was it too obvious how easily they could wrap the boys around their little finger? What a dangerous blush they had - Courfeyrac knew better than anyone the way a face like that could lure a man to his ruin. He withdrew himself from Jehan just in time for Combeferre to take Jehan by the crook of their knees and the curve of their shoulders and swoop them into the air with a breathless shriek of laughter from the delighted child.

Courfeyrac followed behind them, a subdued puppy, down the hall to the waiting bedroom. Combeferre had suggested candles or flowers and Courfeyrac had laughed and imagined what cliche loveliness Eponine must have discovered in Combeferre’s bedroom the first night that they lay together, that Combeferre must surely have ceremoniously bid farewell to his own virginity in a rush of rose petals. He wondered what Combeferre might have done for him, had he had more time to prepare.

But the bedroom now was decorated with nothing more than shadows and hush and fresh sheets. Combeferre lay Jehan upon them with reverence, and Courfeyrac crawled over the edge to kneel between their spread knees and resume his careful worship with wet kisses to their bare flesh and three slick, insistent fingers.

Combeferre bent behind Jehan and ran his hands over their shoulders, across their freckled chest, and down below their dress. Courfeyrac could only see the moving figures of his hands beneath the fabric and not what they accomplished, but from Jehan’s broken moan into the inside of Combeferre’s elbow he surmised it must be good. He took Jehan’s cock into his mouth again to suckle gently while Combeferre tugged the dress up over Jehan’s head and discarded it on the bedroom floor.

Jehan was left in nothing but a lace-and-sheer black bralette and miles of exquisite dappled skin. Courfeyrac could see clearly now the black ink veins across their heart, the fading flowers adorning their shoulders, the dusting of golden-red hair along their sternum catching sparks in the moonlight. There were pinhead scars at their navel from an abandoned piercing, small and white. Their stomach was milk-pale as a newborn’s and had never seen enough light to bloom freckles, but cocoa beauty marks dotted their ribs and the valleys shadowed by their prominent hip bones. Courfeyac’s head was swimming with the scent of their perfume and the thick, salt-sweet taste of them on his tongue and he buried his head down in the junction of their thighs shamelessly, trying to capture it all in his mind. If he had Grantaire’s talent he’d paint it to keep - hell, he wondered if Grantaire ever had - it was the only way to hold this moment to himself forever, the sight of Jehan bare, Jehan his own. Jehan writhing between Courfeyrac’s mouth and fingers working between their legs and Combeferre’s hands stroking their chest, capturing their nipples in his fingers and teasing them roughly.

After a moment, Combeferre shifted off the bed, leaving Jehan to whine at the loss of attention. Courfeyrac tracked his boyfriend with his eyes as he approached and slipped behind him; warm hands came to rest over his stomach, urging him gently upwards. Reluctantly pulling his mouth away from Jehan he rose up to press his back against Combeferre’s chest, and his boyfriend held him close, embracing him and burying his face against the back of Courfeyrac’s neck.

“Combeferre, sweetheart,” Courfeyrac murmured affectionately. He felt the man’s mouth latch below his ear, tongueing at his tender spot and sucking a dark mark.  Jehan propped themself up on their elbows and watched the pair with hunger in their deep blue eyes, watched Combeferre’s hands wander over Courfeyrac’s clothes from ample chest to the bit of pudge over his muscular abdomen to his aching groin, watched Combeferre grip the edge of Courfeyrac’s shirt and tug slowly to reveal one inch of rich gold at a time.

Jehan sucked in a breath, eyelids lowering as they took in the sight of Courfeyrac’s gorgeously sculpted torso revealing itself. Combeferre pulled the shirt over Courfeyrac’s head and tossed it behind them onto the floor. Courfeyrac puffed his chest out, grinning dizzily, aiming for suave and confident and falling somewhere near overeager instead. Combeferre wrapped his arms around his middle again and cradled him close, breathing in the scent of him, and Courfeyrac put his hands over his boyfriend’s and met Jehan’s eyes.

Something had fallen from them, the blind lust softened, the thirsty parting of their lips relaxed perhaps into thirst of a different sort. There had come into their gaze an innocent desire and a barely perceptible edge of sadness. Courfeyrac’s heart ached for it.

Untangling himself from Combeferre, Courfeyrac crawled forwards over Jehan till he was close enough to count his lover’s inky eyelashes, clumped together by mascara. “Hey,” he whispered.

“Hey,” Jehan whispered back. They slung an arm around his neck to bring him into a kiss, sweeter than before, slower, uncertain and pondersome. Somewhere far away, Combeferre’s fingers were skimming his naked sides and his still-clothed ass.

Jehan leaned away and kissed Courfeyrac lightly on the nose. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since I met you, you know. Do you remember?”

“At the game?”

“No. I saw you at a party. You looked like a young god. I was afraid. And so, so enamored.”

Courfeyrac’s faced flooded with warmth. “I thought you had looked familiar. It must have been fate that we met again. I’m so glad that we did.”

Jehan giggled, their own face going red. “Yeah... Fate…”

“Jehan?” Combeferre called from his position behind them.

“Mm?”

“I don’t mean to interrupt your moment… But can Courfeyrac fuck you?”

Jehan looked past Courfeyrac at Combeferre, their face breaking into a wild grin. They nodded and crashed their lips against Courfeyrac’s once more.

Combeferre reached his arms around Courfeyrac’s waist to undo his jeans and shimmy them off, taking blue boxer briefs with them and leaving Courfeyrac naked at last. While the pair were tangled up in one another, kissing and running their hands through hair and over skin, Combeferre retrieved supplies.

“Jehan, are you ready?” Combeferre reached between Courfeyrac’s legs to roll on his condom and slick his heavy cock with lube. The sensation of his boyfriend’s hands upon him after what felt like hours of neglect had Courfeyrac quickly gasping into Jehan’s mouth and praying he could last long enough to give Jehan their satisfaction first. When Combeferre’s hands left him his hips twitched helplessly in the air, desperate and ready.

“Yes, yes, Courf, yes,” they murmured into his ear and brought their legs up to cling around his waist.

And with that, Courfeyrac lined himself up and pressed inside. He carefully watched Jehan’s face as he rocked his hips gently forward, saw a sigh of bliss erupt on their features and only the slightest furrow of concentration. Jehan’s calves shifted, folding themselves further, and their arms gripped the rippling muscles of his back ever harder.

“Okay?” Courfeyrac asked, barely a whisper, and Jehan nodded. He felt them flexing around his length and struggling to relax in spite of their eagerness.

Carefully he rocked into them with greater force and built up a casual pace. Jehan’s body made way for him, became pliant around him, pulled him in closer. Vibrations of pleasure swelled in the pit of his belly and the joining of his thighs. He panted hard against Jehan’s hair, dipping to kiss at their neck and collarbones as Jehan sighed breathily with chest heaving and air catching in their lungs. Their eyes were closed but they held him tight and pushed their body rhythmically against him to a quickening beat.

Combeferre had settled on his side on the bed, still fully dressed, propped up with one elbow while the other hand travelled the length of their jerking bodies aimlessly. “You’re both so gorgeous,” he murmured. “So beautiful like this. I love this.” He cupped Courfeyrac’s ass, palm laying upon it lightly while Courfeyrac thrusted between Jehan’s legs, and squeezed with a grin. “Courfeyrac?”

“Yes, s- Ah, Ferre?”

“Good boy, good. Turn over and let this pretty baby ride you. I can see you both better that way.”

Courfeyrac was more than happy to comply. With Jehan still gripping his middle firmly between their thighs, he rolled onto his back and brought Jehan rolling with them. Their hands and feet were smushed under his back and his cock slipped out from them, and the pair of them giggled happily as they readjusted. Combeferre steadied Jehan with a hand at the small of their back as they took Courfeyrac’s cock in hand and sank down slowly over it again.

His view of Jehan now, straddling his pelvis and sitting tall with paradise written all over their face and their relaxed posture, was radiant. They palmed at his chest and trailed fingers down the patterns of hair to the place where he disappeared inside of them. Courfeyrac pitched his hips up into them and they rolled into the motion easily, and together they repeated the motion till the joining of their bodies was slick with sweat and stickiness. “Courf,” they hissed, “Courf, Courf, ahh…”

Courfeyrac took his hands from where they gripped and petted their thighs and reached to grasp at their dripping cock, but Combeferre beat him to it. Its length disappeared in the broadness of his hand, and Combeferre rubbed the pad of his thumb in small circles against the head until Jehan was gasping and bucking between the two men helplessly.

“Jehan,” Combeferre murmured against Jehan’s shoulder, “Can you keep going after you come?”

Jehan squeaked but was unable to form speech between their pants and gasps and breathy whimpers. Courfeyrac could tell they were inches from coming, and not at a place for conversation - but Combeferre cruelly removed his hand, letting Jehan cry out in frustration, and asked his question again.

“Y-yes,” they stammered, though Courfeyrac suspected that in that moment they might have said anything to be allowed to orgasm.

Combeferre resumed his service of their cock with a sly but affectionate smile. Courf rolled his hips harder, showing off the well-trained power of his abs with every fluid lift, and Jehan rose with him so beautifully, so in sync… “I bet you’re fantastic at mechanical bull riding,” he offered saucily and sped up their pace, gripping their thighs hard enough to bruise.

Jehan’s distracted, broken laughter resonated deep in their core and deep in Courfeyrac. Jehan had been riding tall and straight, copper gold braids cascading down their back and fluttering with every bounce of their body, but they doubled forward and nearly fell against Courfeyrac before catching themself with hands braced on either side of his own splayed curls. Their loose hair fell forward to frame the redness of their face, every gasping breath and quiver of their black eyelashes, and tickled Courfeyrac’s chest and neck. “You’re so beautiful,” he mumbled, keeping steady the rhythm of his pelvis pounding into Jehan from below. “So good. Wish you were mine.”

Jehan squeezed their eyes shut tight, mouth bursting open in a perfect O. Courfeyrac grabbed their waist in his strong hands and forcefully guided them over his cock as their muscles collapsed and they buried their face in the sheets beside Courfeyrac’s head. Though all he could see was the tangle of their hair, the bent shape of their back and Combeferre’s pleased expression somewhere off to the left, he felt the splatter of Jehan’s orgasm fall against his stomach and chest and heard it resound deep in Jehan’s throat in one long, exquisite moan.

“So good, baby, come for me, just like that… Nn, fuck, you’re so tight around my cock like that… So good, sweetheart…”

When Jehan fell limp against him, gasping into his ear, Courfeyrac  gathered his willpower to still his hips and looked to Combeferre for direction.

“How close are you?” Combeferre purred.

“Um,” Courfeyrac squeaked, “Pretty close… Could hold it though… Aah...”

“Alright, baby. I’m gonna make you wait a bit. C’mere, Jehan, beautiful…” Combeferre wrapped his hands around Jehan’s chest and lifted them from Courfeyrac, his still-hard cock slipping from them as they went. Courfeyrac shuffled out of the way as Jehan was laid on their back and Combeferre pulled the sweat-soaked bralette up and away, leaving the pair of them naked and glistening on the bed beside one another and Combeferre kneeling _still_ clothed between them.

“How are you doing?” He asked, rubbing each of their thighs in one hand. The both of them shook like birds, Jehan’s legs and Courfeyrac’s abs quivering especially hard from the efforts of their exercise.

Courfeyrac spread his legs gingerly to avoid friction against his aching cock, letting the tides of arousal mellow out for now. “G-good. Good.”

Jehan nodded their agreement. “Fucking fantastic,” they breathed. “Combeferre…”

“Yes, dear?”

“You’re so… Nnf…”

“I know, dear, I know.”

“Just like I’d hoped…”

“Do you want me to fuck you too?” The smugness in Combeferre’s face had Courfeyrac groaning and pressing his hips up into the chill air shamelessly, cock smacking against his stomach. Combeferre chuckled. “Courfeyrac likes the idea…”

“Yes,” Jehan hissed, “Oh god, _please_ , yes… On all fours?”

“Perfect, sweetheart. Any way you like. Do you need a little time to recover?”

Jehan nodded again, and then turned to Courfeyrac with a shy smile. They rolled onto their side and lay a hand against his chest, swirling their fingers through the patchy hair. “Amazing… You were so amazing… This is so amazing.” They nuzzled against Courfeyrac’s deltoid, peppering his arm with kisses. “You made me feel so good.”

If Courfeyrac had not already been red from head to toe with exertion alone he would have gone from butterscotch to cherry in six seconds flat. Nervously he giggled like a child and smushed his face into Jehan’s wild thatch of hair. “Ahh… Me too… I mean, you did… _Ahhh_ …”

While they held one another and laughed shakily, Combeferre stepped off of the bed and began unbuttoning his shirt. He smirked at the wolf-whistles that the pair threw his way but even in the dark Courfeyrac could make out the blush crawling over his cheeks. He’d certainly become confident in his ability to take control and direct good sex, but became a bashful virgin again under praise and fawning of his exceptional body. Flustered and chuckling, he turned away from the bed to shuffle his shirt down his arms, but the naked expanse of his back was twice as alluring and only heightened their thirst. Courfeyrac was doing his best not to rut himself against Jehan’s leg but Jehan wantonly palmed their soft, sensitive cock with a hand on Courfeyrac’s stomach and eyes dead set on the line of Combeferre’s spine between his broad shoulders.

“I think I’ve died,” they pondered aloud, “and surely gone to heaven. My dalliances in religion never prepared me for so erotic an afterlife. Do I get to do this eternally?”

Courfeyrac grinned, not taking his eyes from where Combeferre fiddled with the button of his slacks, still turned away from their view. “As a good catholic,” Courfeyrac said, “I can assure you that the best sex happens in hell… And this man is an incubus of the lowest ring…”

“Carnal pleasure,” Combeferre submitted as he finally dropped his trousers and turned back to crawl upon the bed in only his boxers, “is neither of heaven nor of hell. It is of the earth, and distinctly human. As I am. Though I appreciate your flattery, I worry that you unduly inflate our sweet Jehan’s expectations…”

“Bullshit,” Courfeyrac muttered with an absent smile and reached for the elastic of Combeferre’s boxers, but Combeferre batted him away and peeled them down his thighs himself.

Courfeyrac gripped Jehan’s arm enthusiastically and watched as their shadowed pupils dilated and their mouth slipped agape, first slack in shock and then curving in an uncontrollable grin, teeth parting around huffs of flustered laughter. They tried to choke out words, and when they failed, they clambered over themself to crawl forward reverently on hands and knees towards where Combeferre gripped himself as subconsciously as he ever had. “You don’t have to do-” he remembered to try and assure them, but was quickly cut off. Jehan had wrenched his hips in desperate hands and silenced him with one pleading, ineffable longing glance before swiping their small pink tongue against his great length.

Combeferre’s eyes fluttered shut and he barely retained the mindfulness to hand his glasses to Courfeyrac to be set aside before Jehan ambitiously forced Combeferre’s cock down their throat, hardly making it halfway before they were sputtering around it and pulling back with tears forming on their lashes. Combeferre grasped at their hair. Gentle touches at first, soft and exploratory, even soothing; til he gripped hard and shoved them down, choked out noises and wet heat vibrating around him, and this time the tears rolled down Jehan’s cheeks and dripped messily from their chin.

“You alright?” Combeferre asked, pulling back and out from between Jehan’s spit-slick lips.

They nodded. “S-so alright,” they rasped. “You’re ‘mazing...”

“Still want me to fuck you?”

“ _Please_. Mother in heaven, Combeferre, holy shit, holy shit, you’re so… This is… I never...”

“Isn’t it a glory?” Courfeyrac asked, patting Jehan’s wet ass where it waved before him.

Jehan hummed in affirmation without taking their eyes from Combeferre’s powerful endowment. Even as Combeferre steered them around into position they struggled to tear their gaze away until they launched their face into the sheets and squirmed with nerves and excitement, arching their back with feline grace to give Combeferre an enticing eyeful. He reached back into the nightstand for another condom and found the lube near the pillow.

“Patience, pretty baby,” Courfeyrac cooed and wound Jehan’s aurulent curls in his hand. He cuddled up close to them, bringing their head to rest against his thigh. “You’re so eager.”

“I see what you mean now,” Jehan huffed, their voice muffled and giggling. “Doublestuffing unnecessary…”

Above the giggling pair, Combeferre rolled his eyes. “Size queens,” he chided affectionately. He palmed Jehan’s ass and spread them open, rubbing his thumbs into the crease and around the edges of their loosened hole and adding lube as he went. In moments he had Jehan trembling again, quaking in the legs and stomach, breathing hard and clutching at Courfeyrac. When Combeferre felt quite certain that Jehan was ready to take him, he paused. “Are you still good for this, Jehan? Still okay?” His voice was low and hesitant as though he really believed that Jehan might change their mind after all.

“Combeferre, for the thirty thousandth fucking time, _yes_ , if you don’t impale me on your giant trouser anaconda in the next ten seconds I’m leav- _Oh_!”

After one initial shove meant just to taunt, Combeferre guided himself inside slowly. He massaged Jehan’s ass and rocked in and out lightly, pressing further forward each time. Jehan went all but quiet save for heavy breaths and Combeferre could feel them doing their best to make puddles of their muscles and allow Combeferre inside. “Jesus Christ,” he heard them whisper. “Mmm…” Their knees shifted on the bed, spreading wider open.

“Jehan, you’re so tight,” Combeferre breathed out. He could only make out part of Jehan’s face where it was pressed between Courfeyrac’s leg and the mattress but what he saw was peace and pleasure, and so hesitantly he sped his pace, thrusting harder. Jehan’s body continued to relax around him as blissful sensations built within him, edging him ever closer, and yet he hadn’t even bottomed out yet… Jehan’s feet jerked uncontrollably over his calves, trying to find the purchase to roll their hips back against him.

For the first time since he’d begun with Jehan, Combeferre took notice of Courfeyrac. He reclined against the pillows, stroking Jehan’s head against his leg with one hand and running his other hand through his own hair. Though he seemed content - more than content, _infatuated_ , with sparkling eyes and a dazed grin glancing between the two of them - his hips were twitching in the air, neglected cock achingly hard and bobbing.

“Courfeyrac,” Combeferre panted out, slowing his thrusts back down to a gentle pulse, “Wanna come?”

Like a lightswitch, Courfeyrac’s look of infatuation perked suddenly into a wide-eyed expression rather reminiscent of Napoleon’s when the pup heard Marius rattling his leash - alert, eager, and desperate like he’d been cruelly denied for years rather than a few hours at most. Combeferre would laugh if he weren’t so helplessly aroused. “Jehan, can you multitask?”

It took a moment for the words to register, as Jehan’s eyes were closed and they seemed to have zeroed in on the feeling of Combeferre’s cock sliding in and out of them and blocked out all else. But when they understood, they affirmed it, and clumsily raised up to their elbows.

Courfeyrac rushed to tie off his condom and chuck it away into the bin they’d long ago placed directly beside the bed - Jehan didn’t need a mouthful of their own ass. He made to replace it, but Jehan reached out for his attention and shrugged (to the best of their ability from their position) with a lopsided grin. They reached out a hand to graze Courfeyrac’s bare cock invitingly.

While Courfeyrac found a position in front of Jehan, Combeferre kept his pace slow but deep; he pulled away until only his head remained inside, soaking in the resistance of Jehan’s body that held him so tightly within, and then pushed back inside until his pelvis pressed flush against Jehan’s ass, and repeated. With every few thrusts he’d rub straight along that secret place that had Jehan jerking and crying out, and every time the poet threw their head back to moan, Combeferre glowed with pride and a buzz of his own.

Meanwhile, Courfeyrac settled back on his heels and fisted hands in Jehan’s hair to guide their mouth down around his cock. They wasted no time now with teasing kitten licks; Jehan sunk down over him, immediately pushing till their nose was buried in short, dark curls.  Courfeyrac’s cock was hardly modest, Combeferre mused, but after his own it was an easy feat. They bobbed their head sloppily, sucking along the shaft loud enough for Combeferre to hear even over the quick wet smacks of his pelvis against their ass.

Combeferre spread his knees to find a better hold against the mattress. He took Jehan’s waist firmly in his hands and sped his pace till he was gripping them to bruise and pounding hard, the soft fat of their ass trembling with the impact, and they squirmed against him roughly and cried out muffled shouts with their throat convulsing around Courfeyrac’s cock. Courfeyrac fucked their face with abandon, yanking their hair and whimpering as their hips writhed. Jehan had one hand fisted in the sheets and another splayed against Courfeyrac’s sweat-slick back.

And then, with his face contorted in a silent shout, Courfeyrac’s hips stuttered and he at last spilled his orgasm down Jehan’s waiting throat. Combeferre was surprised it had taken him even that much time considering how close he had been to the edge for so long.

Jehan sucked him down with practiced ease, cradling the oversensitive cock along his tongue even as it softened and Courfeyrac melted into a relaxed post-orgasmic slump in the pillow pile by the headboard, still stroking Jehan’s hair and breathing hard.

Combeferre could feel the final lap approaching, and as much as he would have liked for Jehan to come undone around him, he thought that perhaps Jehan’s revelation of his tongue piercing might be rather anticlimactic if not put to proper use… And so resolved, Combeferre shoved Jehan back down against the mattress and pounded him mercilessly, letting Jehan’s every cry pull him closer to orgasm.

“F-fuck, ‘Ferre, uhn, nnn,” Jehan panted incoherently. “You’re so, ah, god, so thick inside me, so fucking incredible, ah, _ah_ ,” until they lost coherency and merely keened loudly. They’d quickly lost the energy to meet him thrust for thrust, but it made no difference to Combeferre. He had them firmly by the waist and in the pulse of his adrenalin they weighed nothing. He shoved them back and forth along his cock effortlessly at an ever-increasing speed and strength, feeling the warm buzz spread from his abdomen to the ends of his fingers and his twitching feet. White flashed at the edges of his vision. “Fuck,” Jehan cried out, “Fucking, _Daddy, yes_!”

Combeferre’s climax slammed him like a fucking truck. For a long moment, the universe was narrowed to Jehan’s spilled halo of curls on the white sheets, Courfeyrac’s smirk just beyond them, and the powerful ripples of pleasure convulsing ever muscle in his body.

At last he felt the strength flooding away from him and bent limp over Jehan’s back, braced against the bed. He still pumped gently as aftershocks passed through him.

“ _Monsieur_ ,” Jehan said, their voice cracking with the effort, “a gentleman always lets his lady finish first…” They were smiling though, eyes still glittering despite their exhaustion.

Combeferre huffed out a chuckle and pulled out from Jehan’s pliant body. “My sincerest apologies. Allow me to make amends?” He discarded his condom and lowered himself down to his belly, encouraging Jehan onto their back.

“You’ll have to spend some time apologizing for an offense like that,” Jehan replied smartly, head now soundly pillowed on the inside of Courfeyrac’s thigh, not at all bothered by the man’s limp dick lying quite close to their cheek. “Very thoroughly.”

“I will make it up to you,” Combeferre promised, and set to work.

As he settled his mouth over Jehan’s cockhead and began to work his tongue in light circles, Combeferre silently thanked Courfeyrac for every trick the man had taught him. Although he’d had a few solid years of sex under his belt, so to speak, the art of dick sucking was a skill he owed in its entirety to six months of patient practice with Courfeyrac, his first dick-possessing lover (slash blowjob tutor). And the piercing, Courfeyrac attested, was not insignificant.

Combeferre hollowed his cheeks, allowing them to slide fully along Jehan’s length as he bobbed his head and ran the flat of his tongue against the bottom. He dragged his piercing against their slit and the force of Jehan’s pelvis slamming up into his face made him grateful that he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

He repeated the action once, twice, three times, and then with only a warning yell, Jehan was throwing their had back and coming. Lacking their talents, Combeferre was hardly able to contain it all; as much fluid spilled messily down his chin as down his throat. Jehan was arching into him, hair tossed and glistening with sweat, and even in their orgasm managed to be both overdramatic and unbearably charming. When they’d finished, Combeferre pulled away and wiped the mess from their face.

“So much for long and thorough,” he purred. “That was almost instantaneous.”

“What can I say,” Jehan sighed dreamily. Their eyes were closed in bliss. “Your tongue is as outstanding as your penis.”

“...Shucks,” Combeferre replied, blushing.

While Jehan went away to the bathroom to clean themself up and bring a rag back for the others, Combeferre crawled up to sit beside Courfeyrac at the head of the bed. He was looking dazed and faraway, with the faintest smile upon his face. “So?” Combeferre asked hesitantly.

It took a moment for presence to come back to Courfeyrac’s eyes. When he looked at Combeferre he looked so at peace, so warm and in love, and Combeferre was overcome with the desire to give that to him every single day. He nuzzled into Courfeyrac’s shoulder, smiling to himself uncontrollably.

“You’re wonderful, ‘Ferre,” Courfeyrac said softly. “So wonderful to give this to me.”

Combeferre covered Courfeyrac’s hands where they sat in his lap with his own. “We gave this to us. We both wanted this. And now we have the chance to, you know, move forward together, right?”

Courfeyrac nodded, looking down at their clasped hands. His smile remained, but Combeferre felt it go hollow.

Jehan returned and tossed a warm, wet cloth to the pair on the bed. As they cleaned up places sticky with sweat and other fluids, they pulled Courfeyrac’s underwear out of the pile of his jeans on the floor and stepped into them. “I’m wearing these,” they declared.

“They look good on you,” Courfeyrac sighed.

“Oh look,” Jehan said, bending to reach Courfeyrac’s phone where it had fallen from his jeans pocket onto the carpet. “You’ve got a text from Cosette.”

They deposited the phone in his lap and crawled over his legs clumsily, squishing themself between Courfeyrac and Combeferre.

**[From: ~ _Motherfucking Princess~_ 23:19]**

>> _hey so who are you inviting to the party?_

Courfeyrac typed a response with one arm around Jehan, watching them make out with Combeferre from the corner of his eye.

**[From: _~Prince Charming~_ 23:56]**

>> _some quidditch people, some school friends, some folks from me n marius’s dorm… and all the Amis obv. maybe like 30 people in all?_

Courfeyrac had hardly turned his head to press his lips to Jehan’s exposed neck before his phone buzzed again.

**[From: ~ _Motherfucking Princess~_ 23:56]**

>> _umm how about R?_

**[From: ~ _Prince Charming~_ 23:57]**

>> _are you serious? don’t you and enj have like some *bad history* with him??_

**[From: ~ _Motherfucking Princess~_ 23:58]**

>> _Not bad history so much as… powerful history. Enjolras is working some things out for himself about it all. But I’m not… and Enj won’t be there soooo… >->_

**[From: ~ _Prince Charming~_ 23:59]**

>> :o _alright cutie, if that’s what you want, i’ll invite him._

**[From: ~ _Motherfucking Princess~_ 00:01]**

>> _I mean, YOU won’t mind though right?? I thought you guys were friends!!_

**[From: ~ _Prince Charming~_ 00:02]**

>> _Yeah, I fuckin love R! He’s great! I mean, he was a piece of shit at the meeting today, Enj told you about that right????? But like… booze problem and highly questionable choices be damned, I’m pretty keen on the dude. I’d be happy to have him there, he’s a great partier._

**[From: ~ _Motherfucking Princess~_ 00:02]**

>> _Yeah, Enjolras told me. It makes me sad. But I’d like to try and sort this mess out… and I need to see him. I just really need to. Please make sure he comes!_

**[From: ~ _Prince Charming~_ 00:03]**

>> _I’ll drag him there myself by his luscious hair, princess. ovo_

“Interesting developments,” Courfeyrac said aloud, and the two beside him pried their mouths apart and gave him their attention. “Cosette wants Grantaire to come to the party.” He gave them their phone to observe the conversation for themselves.

“The plot thickens,” Jehan murmured. “The mystery grows ever more mysterious…”

Combeferre knit his brows together, squinting to comprehend the text on the glowing screen without his glasses. When he’d finished, he made a noise of uneasy perplexment.

“Ditto,” Courfeyrac added.

“Cosette is loyal to a fault. She and Enjolras are attached at the heartstrings if no longer at the hip. She wouldn’t do this if she really felt that Grantaire was now or had ever been a threat to her brother,” Combeferre mused aloud.

“Right,” Courfeyrac agreed. “Further proof that Grantaire isn’t C, and doesn’t have anything to do with… whatever happened to Enjolras last semester. It makes me feel better about still liking Grantaire… I just wonder, what is _going on_ in Enjolras’s head?”

“He was harsh today, wasn’t he? Grantaire was being belligerent and clearly just antagonistic, but Enjolras would hardly even hear him, and... ‘Why are you even here?’ Am I wrong, or was that too far?” Combeferre still stared at the phone, thumb hovering over the phrase ‘ _powerful history’_.

“Not crazy at all. That was... Yeah. Cringeworthy, especially if Cosette’s indication is true, that he really hasn’t done anything worthy of that kind of animosity except show up drunk and be annoying for a while… Should we… say something?”

Combeferre and Jehan both shook their heads. Jehan responded first. “Not yet. I love Enjolras, and I know that you both are incredibly close to him, but Cosette said that he’s working this out for himself. Not yet.”

Combeferre nodded his agreement. “You know Enjolras hates when we try to father him.”

“ _You_ , ‘Ferre, when _you_ try to father him… I’m the cool big brother that encourages his wild streak…”

Combeferre chuckled at Courfeyrac’s smug, insistent grin. "Yes. Point remains, let us trust him and Grantaire to be adults. For now.”

“As much as I love talking about all this hot drama,” Jehan put in, “I am ready to be sandwiched happily between the two of you all night long…”

“Mmm, _yesss_.” Courfeyrac took the phone and tossed it onto the nightstand. He turned over and embraced giggling Jehan against his chest. “I’m always ready for that.”

Combeferre turned over and leaned on his elbow, admiring what he could make out of the two naked forms and savoring their mirrored curves. Combeferre’s hand was splayed on Jehan’s chest, and Jehan’s curved up to brush through Courfeyrac’s dark hair. He could see this every night, he thought. He could see this every night and be happy.

As Combeferre pressed close to them, creating a cocoon around Jehan, Courfeyrac buried his face into the back of Jehan’s hair, desperate to memorize the smell of them. This was his only chance to know it till it was time to put it behind him, and be happy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I will do my best to keep us on a biweekly schedule again. I might go to every three weeks here and there, but I'll try hard to keep us at least mostly regular. I shouldn't have to go on a proper hiatus again.
> 
> In the case of unannounced irregularity: I will ALWAYS update on Fridays. If I miss a Friday deadline, I will wait until the following Friday to post. (This way if I miss a deadline you guys don't have to check every day, growing steadily more disappointed... Just every Friday lmao.) 
> 
> If you get concerned or curious if my chapter isn't up when I said it would be, feel free to pop over to my blog at princetenjolras and ask how it's doing! I'll be glad to give an update.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Courfeyrac is very good at quite a lot of things, and throwing parties is pretty high up there; but there are some things that you just can't plan for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> B) Alright let's get this party started
> 
> Warnings for the chapter include: Alcohol, pot mention... It's a party.

**[From: _Courf_** **13:42]**  
>> _Hey, I’m throwing a party next weekend for my roommate’s birthday and you should totally come B)  
_ >> _Full disclosure tho… 1. It’s at Cosette Fauchelevent’s place 2. She specifically asked me to invite you 3. Enjolras isn’t coming  
_ >> _cuz he’s a party pooper, not cuz you might be there  
_ >> ( _jk i feel bad calling him a party pooper. he just doesnt do crowds when they arent revolting against something lmao)  
_ >> _anyway come to our party B)_

Cradling Ophelia against his shoulder, Grantaire examined the series of texts for perhaps the five hundredth time. “What the fuck,” he whispered to the curious snake as her heavy coils slunk further around his neck. “What the _fuck_.”

It had been a week since he’d received it, and it was still just about the only response he could muster (aside from the “ _cool i’ll be there_ ” he’d fired off after about two hours of panic and wild overthinking).

He had studied her name as it was written, Cosette Fauchelevent - what had become of Cosette Enjolras? Buried in a Montfermeil backyard, right beside Angèle Enjolras, he supposed. Starved skeleton children, given to the land. Replaced by - he sorted it out carefully in his mind - Euphrasie “Cosette” Fauchelevent and Enjolras Unknown Fauchelevent, brilliant young lovers of the light, radiant beings of the sun. And this brand new Cosette Fauchelevent requested his presence, _specifically_ called for him, for Grantaire by name, beckoned him to attend her court of pretty young things. For what purpose? He could only fathom that it was to be punished for his vile drunken transgressions against her transcendent transbrother. He would come to her to answer for the fuckup of a lifetime.

Standing in boxers in front of the bathroom mirror, he stared his figure up and down unhappily. Had he had time to prepare for his first encounter of Enjolras, is there a thing he could have changed about his choice of jeans or the trim of his scruff that would have altered that disastrous outcome? Should he have worn his hair differently? He tried it up, then down, then half-up-half-down, trying each time to see himself through the wise, shimmering eyes of Cosette, the way she would see him tonight. He had time now, he had control... and he would waste it with this awful anxiety. He set Ophelia gently down on the marble counter and went to dig through his mess of a wardrobe. None of his paint-stained flannels or band t-shirts with holes worn through the armpits were exactly terrifying-reunion-worthy, but he had a few pieces buried somewhere in here that someone might call mildly respectable.

Eventually he settled on a rumpled green cardigan with patched elbows (because elbow patches were classy, maybe) and a gray thrift shop waistcoat, which he buttoned and unbuttoned three times before finally deciding that unbuttoned was the right amount of rumpled and charming. He styled his hair half-up with a small pinned braid that Jehan would have been proud of and completed the look with a brilliant jade scarf that Jehan assured him brought out his eyes and a pair of dirty work boots whose primary (and maybe only) appeal was their impressive age. All in all, he looked like a fucking asshole hipster, but it was too late to change. Combeferre was buzzing him, announcing that he was outside, and so Grantaire helplessly lowered Ophelia back into her tank with a kiss and thanks for her fashion advice, found his gift for Marius in the kitchen (it was a birthday party, after all) and scrambled outside.

Upon approaching the rusted rumbling machine that ought have been turned over to a scrapyard fifteen years ago, Grantaire peered through the window to assess the birthday boy, who was glancing sheepishly at him in return. Grantaire motioned at him to lower the window, which he did, by manual crank.

He was a gawky and handsome thing, seeming still caught in the process of transformation from homely duckling to suave young swan. Though Combeferre was surely taller and at least a little broader, this Marius fellow seemed twice as uncomfortable with his tangle of limbs stuffed into the tiny space of the passenger seat. All things about his look were notable - the pale sandy tone of his skin, spattered with hints of freckles faded by winter and a well-placed beauty mark or three, not unlike Courfeyrac’s, and his dark hair seemed to need no combing to fall charmingly over his eyes; but these, these eyes, were the centerpiece of the man. One was brown and plain enough in color, but the other Grantaire could only describe as _cotton candy blue_. Not the clear ice of Enjolras, not the sensual lapis of Jehan, but its own heavenly cream shade of blue, and Grantaire wondered whether he could cajole the odd-eyed man into sitting for his portrait.

“You must be Monsieur Marius Pontmercy, whose joyous birth into our citizenry we celebrate today! Happy birthday, my fellow, and here is your gift.” Through the window he passed two sizeable bottles of wine with a waggle of his eyebrows and made to round the car and enter through its only functioning rear door.

“I’m English, actually,” he heard Marius mutter to the wine.

“The citizenry of man,” Combeferre replied with a warm smile. “You’re looking well, Grantaire.”

“That’s quite alright, Marius, I forgive you. Thank you, Combeferre, you’re looking dapper as always yourself. Marius, how old are you today?”

“Eighteen, but I’ll be nineteen on Monday…”

“Well! Two birthdays in a row, I’m glad I brought two bottles!” He strapped himself in and the car wobbled out onto the road.

“That’s not -” Marius seemed to debate the unnecessary explanation, but settled instead on blushing into the rearview mirror, furrowing his eyebrows, and concentrating on the road. Grantaire chuckled to himself, thoroughly pleased.

“You are the Marius whose Napoleon Combeferre has been fostering, are you not?”

Marius brightened at that. “I am! Next year when I leave the dorms and get my own apartment he’ll be able to live with me, but Combeferre’s been very very generous in the meantime… I love him so much…”

“We all do, Combeferre’s quite the man.”

Marius’s face reddened. “I meant… Aah…” Combeferre chuckled and touched Marius with a reassuring hand, which quieted him but seemed to do little comfort. He was at least though able to manage a light laugh of his own, and Grantaire didn’t feel so bad about teasing the clearly easily flustered fellow.

“Jehan wasn’t with you?” Combeferre changed the subject, curious gray eyes catching Grantaire’s from the rear view.

“They’re already there,” Grantaire replied. If they hadn’t been, Grantaire could have let them style his outfit and felt a little more at ease about the whole ordeal. “I think they went early to do some baking?”

Combeferre smiled. “Courfeyrac and Jehan baking together sounds like a great way to start the party early… Hopefully the house doesn’t smell too terrible by the time we arrive…”

“I’ve had Jehan’s baking before, I think it will smell delicious!” Marius smiled serenely out the window.

Grantaire and Combeferre met eyes again in the mirror knowingly, laughing to themselves. Grantaire really was starting to like this naive fellow.

“Bahorel and Feuilly are coming in Bahorel’s pick-up, right? Do you know if they got into contact with Joly and Bossuet about giving them a lift?”

Grantaire shrugged. “Nope. I haven’t heard anything from Joly or Bossuet since last night.”

“Me neither, nor Feuilly, and we’ve texted Joly a few times… He’s typically very diligent about timely responses, I’ve started to get a little worried…”

“Last I heard they were going barhopping. I would have gone with, but I was, ah, otherwise engaged…” The image of Jehan climbing into his lap fully naked and ripping his phone from his hand swam before Grantaire’s eyes. Thanks to the gentleman in the driver’s seat, the little minx had been absolutely insatiable for the last _week_. Grantaire had hardly left the house except for work and classes, and Jehan had even persuaded him, with legs spread and hair sweaty, to skip a few of those… Jehan had recounted every detail of the _menage_ _à_ _trois_ to him with knees wrapped around the man’s waist, and quite frankly, he was finding that it was now more than a little difficult to look Combeferre squarely in the eye. He shook the images from his head and moved on to another pressing matter.

“So… If I may ask… Courfeyrac said Cosette asked for me specifically?”

Combeferre nodded, and met his eyes again. “Yes. Was there a question in there?”

Grantaire shrugged. “I just… I’m not sure that inviting me out to a party, at a house I’ve never been to in some out-of-the-way suburb, is the best way to… I dunno, yell at me for being an idiot… What am I supposed to do after that? Leave and find my way home? Drink until it didn’t happen?”

Combeferre raised an eyebrow. “Is she going to yell at you?” he asked coolly.

Grantaire shrugged again and fidgeted with his seat belt. “ _I_ don’t know! I don’t know what she wants any better than you do, ‘Ferre…”

Combeferre turned his gaze back to the road. “Cosette is not the yelling type. If it puts you at any ease, I don’t think she’s inviting you to punish you for your behavior last weekend. I’m sure you have punished yourself enough for that.” Though even and calm, his tone bordered on cutting, and Grantaire once more considered himself profoundly lucky that these good people still wanted to associate with him at all.

Grantaire stared at his knees. Indeed, it was punishment enough that he had ruined all chances of being in Enjolras’s life again. He’d tried to calm himself by reminding himself that it was no different than it had been a few weeks ago, when it had been six years since he had watched the little boy leave him and never return. Enjolras was as gone as he had ever been. The only alteration was that this time it was his fault, personally. Just another mark on the list of things he had fucked up for himself.

“Then her intentions are a mystery to us all,” Grantaire grumbled miserably.

\----------------

It had grown dark by the time Combeferre pulled into his chosen parking spot. Grantaire resisted the urge to blurt, “Where the fuck is the house?” There seemed to be nothing here on this dim drive called ‘ _Rue Plumet_ ’ but an ancient garden wall and the surrounding overgrown thicket. There was a church nearby,  some abandoned-looking homes down the road, and a bus shelter that the city appeared to have neglected for twenty years or more, but all in all, this did not look like a place where anybody lived. Nonetheless, there were a few other cars parked nearby, indicating that it was indeed the party location.

Carefully locking his car and grabbing his own wrapped present from the back seat, Combeferre led them forth. He followed the old mossy wall as it turned around the block into what could hardly be described as more than an alley. Eventually they arrived at a massive wrought-iron gate, welded with delicate floral designs, which offered a view into a wild garden that was currently populated only by dense branches and the occasional winter bloom. The number _#55_ adorned the gate’s center.

Grantaire stared at the foreboding gate, wondering how they were meant to get inside, but Combeferre revealed a numbered keypad hiding behind some overgrown leaves and punched in the sequence. “You’ve been here before, I take it?” Grantaire inquired.

“A few times,” Combeferre replied as the great gates wrenched open with a terrible grating cry. “It’s a lovely home, and Cosette and her father were very generous to host us here.”

Grantaire nodded, anticipation gnawing at his belly. Cosette was here. Inside that wild garden, somewhere she was waiting for him. He eyed the wine in Marius’s arms, wishing that he had pre-gamed some, but he had desperately been trying to avoid recreating his mistakes a second time. However he’d fuck up now, he’d do it sober.

Combeferre led them up a winding path of dirty cobblestones, deep into the garden, until the residence at last emerged from the leaves. _Lovely home my ass_ , Grantaire thought. This place was almost a manor. It looked hundreds of years old, fabulous wealth decayed into cozy splendor by the centuries, and it struck Grantaire to imagine that this is the other home in which Enjolras and Cosette had grown up. What a vast chasm had been crossed between their childhood and their adolescence. Combeferre rung the doorbell. Grantaire held his breath.

But alas, when the door swung open, it was Courfeyrac’s brightly grinning face illuminated by the glow from inside. “Hey! Come on in, some people are already here…” Grantaire could hear pop music pulsing cheerily from a distant room. He stepped in after Combeferre, greeted with a kiss, and Marius, with a hug and a happy birthday, and himself received a happy clap on the back. “Glad you’re here, Grantaire.”

“Thanks for the invitation.” The warm atmosphere of the home embraced him away from the chill of the evening outside. The interior was more modest than the exterior would suggest; this was not the home of a poor family, but neither one who valued wealth. The wallpaper was old and out of fashion, stripes and illustrated flowers and brightly parading roosters, and the hardwood floors hadn’t been polished in years. Bookshelves overflowed; unlike in the Thenardier home, with actual books, volumes on volumes. He noticed a particular abundance of religious tomes, as well as a crucifix mounted on one wall, and wondered whether Enjolras had ultimately received a proper catholic indoctrination. It was a funny thing to imagine; that after the circumstances of his youth, he might still believe in a righteous God.

They found the party in the living room, where Grantaire recognized a handful of members of Courfeyrac’s quidditch team grinding ass to crotch to Katy Perry amidst strangers he couldn’t place. Courfeyrac was grabbing people’s elbows and throwing names around, Marius struggling to shake hands while juggling wine bottles until Courfeyrac snatched them and handed them off to someone else to be taken to the kitchen, but Grantaire couldn’t focus on any of it. He turned slowly, assessing the reproduction Van Goghs hanging on the walls while his heart pounded, and suddenly felt a brush against his arm.

He nearly jumped out of his skin till he caught Jehan’s gleaming eyes beside him. “ _Bon soir mon coeur_. You look very handsome tonight.” They balanced up on their toes for a quick kiss, stroking his stubble, and then took his arm and guided him gently around.

Behind him was the dining room, where the table had been pulled out with every extra leaf added to support a wealth of food and quite a lot of alcohol. The feast of party snacks included not one, not two, but _three_ cakes of varying shapes and sizes, all inscribed in wobbly letters with “Happy Birthday Marius!” His eyes scanned the length of the table, taking in all the appetizing work that had been done, till it came to the far end -

She stood bathed in the golden light of the dining room chandelier, hands balanced lightly on the back of a chair, watching him with patience. When his eyes met hers, she smiled, and the whole of her aura glowed.

When he had seen Enjolras, the world had stopped. He had floated before him, and Grantaire had felt a great, swelling rush, felt cannons bursting inside of him, felt shock tear his body open in the stillness stretched out between them, felt the sun exploding quietly over them.

Under Cosette’s loving gaze, Grantaire felt peace like he had never known.

She drifted forward, slowly at first, then more quickly with hands coming up towards him, extended in a gesture of grace. Palms out she came to him and the exquisite softness of her fingertips brushed past his sides. She pulled herself close to him, burying her head against him with fearless intimacy, and wrapped her arms tight around him.

Grantaire hardly realized that tears had swelled in his eyes until they were clouding his vision and falling into her hair.

He threw his arms around her small body, embracing her with a hand cradling her head to his chest. He had expected to be chastised, to see her angry for the first time in his life, had expected at the very least a stern discussion in concern for her brother… He had not expected this. “Grantaire,” she was saying, her voice so sweet and so sad, “I prayed everyday that we would find you again…”

She pulled back, looking up at him, and Grantaire felt overwhelmed with her forgiveness and her kindness and her childlike love. She was so bright and healthy and so incredibly beautiful, nothing like the limp bruised child he’d left behind. Her impossibly long hair fell around her in waves. The golden color drifted into rose and ended in seafoam near the tops of her thighs. One side of her head was cut close and clean like Courfeyrac’s, an oddly punk accent on the diminished little lark he’d known, and it spoke to a charming and audacious character that had him falling in love at first sight all over again. She was her own little person now. A young woman with a sense of self expression and self ownership. The idea had him grinning with pride and emotion. He carefully ran his fingers over the bristles, and she giggled and reached up to stroke his stubble like Jehan had.

“Enjolras told me you had a beard,” she said, laughing sweetly and admiring it with her hands. “You look so grown, Grantaire.”

“Are you kidding?” He choked out, heart fluttering at the thought that Enjolras had told her of something as trivial as his facial hair. “Look at you. You’re gorgeous. You’re a whole real teenage woman. Look at this,” he said, still touching her hair. She giggled, bringing her hand to brush his on her head.

It was only then that Grantaire observed how many people were staring intently at them. Combeferre was pretending not to, with his face half-hidden behind a wine glass, and Courfeyrac at least had the decency to look away when spotted, but Jehan still stared with round eyes and hands clasping their cheeks, lips parted, enraptured. Even Feuilly and Bahorel, whom Grantaire had not even noticed coming in, were both watching with interest.

“Grantaire, we ought to talk privately, shouldn’t we?” Cosette suggested, taking his hand in hers. He nodded, ignoring the eyes upon him as she led him through the tangle of friends and strangers away from the party and up a flight of stairs to the dark upper floor.

The long hall was all shadows - presumably to discourage party guests from sneaking into bedrooms - and Grantaire couldn’t help but glance around in the darkness, fishing for signs. Signs of what, he wasn’t sure, but every corner seemed to hide the clues he coveted, clues about the lives of Enjolras and Cosette. They passed a door slightly ajar, and Grantaire noted great shapes of furniture hidden under sheets.

“We’re redoing that room,” Cosette noticed when she saw him looking. “It was Enjolras’s before, sort of. Papa is thinking of adopting again though, and it should be brand new for the little one.”

“Sort of?” Grantaire questioned.

“Yes, well, we’d shared a bed our whole lives. Separating us in the night into two separate rooms felt more like a threat than a privilege. Eventually when Papa realized that Enjolras’s bed never saw him, he switched my twin out for a full size…” If there was ever a doubt that Grantaire would love and trust the man that they had come to call their father, it was vanquished in that moment. “He did take to his own eventually, but only some of the time.”

Still holding his hand, Cosette turned Grantaire into another room at the end of the hall. She separated from him to illuminate a bedside lamp, and he took a moment to take it all in, the nest that Cosette had made her home.

Though spacious, it was prim and clean, crowded with the adornments of years of life but all arranged in neat order. What could be seen of the walls was robin’s egg blue; much of them was hidden by bookshelves, a tall roll top desk, an antique standing wardrobe and dresser set, and myriad wall hangings. Grantaire’s gaze gravitated immediately to her bookshelves and picked out Judy Blume, Sylvia Plath, and an analysis of Sappho at a glance. He trailed his eyes past lace curtains and hanging paper lanterns over the collage on the walls. The space was filled with an unknowable history - models cut from magazines, posters of girls holding acoustic guitars, playbills and movie ticket stubs, cards both hallmark and homemade, pages torn from books, a paper tiara, pinned feathers, framed drawings, and a dizzying amount of photographs. Many were of Cosette over the years, filling in the gaps between when Grantaire had last seen her and this moment. Cosette with butterfly clips in her hair, Cosette on horseback, Cosette dressed as Rapunzel on Halloween. Cosette in crowds of strangers, Cosette posing with a class at the zoo. Cosette laughing between two smiling peers. Cosette kissing a chestnut haired girl on the lips. Cosette bent over a sewing machine in a row of seamstresses - Grantaire had to double take; the girl depicted there was surely older than Cosette, with a different nose, a more slight face; but his consideration of her was quickly distracted when he caught sight of Enjolras.

Enjolras beamed out at him from under a pair of mickey mouse ears. His hair was stunningly short, a sheared mop that only barely curled under his ears. Cosette wore her own pair of Minnie ears beside him, and they were positioned in front of a playground slide. They didn’t look much younger than he knew them now.

Directly adjacent to that photograph, he found Enjolras again, grinning at Cosette in profile on the steps of the same playground castle.

And then a third; Enjolras and Cosette posing together in a sandbox, Cosette in a lavender bikini and Enjolras in a small peach sleeveless top and swim trunks, and a fourth, the pair of them sitting awkwardly on two of those playground toys that sway back and forth as you ride them. Grantaire wandered over to examine the curious cluster of photographs.

Cosette seated herself on her bed, sinking into the plush white duvet. From across the room she examined Grantaire’s fascination and then tittered with laughter. “Oh, those. I love those.”

“Were these all taken on the same day?”

“Not exactly! The first was from Disneyland Paris. Papa took us for our thirteenth birthday. That was in front of the magic castle! Then there’s one from the front steps of the first apartment we lived in after we left… Then there’s the one from Argelès Plage, and the one from when we took horseback riding lessons!”

Grantaire looked back at her, thoroughly confused. The set of four photos were clearly taken on the same day, at the same ordinary children’s playground - hell, except for the one in bathing suits, they were even wearing the same clothes.

Cosette smiled serenely. “Enjolras doesn’t want old photos of himself displayed. He doesn’t like seeing himself… the way that he used to look. So to celebrate his sixth month anniversary of starting HRT, I took him out to the park to retake some of our favorite photos.”

Grantaire felt a lump swelling in his throat, and he did his best to swallow it down. God, it was all flooding back to him. The burning in his chest, the glowing in his stomach. These terrible symptoms of love that he once had coped with every day as he brushed Angèle’s long hair and read stories aloud to Cosette. And then, like a punch to the gut, he found standing proud on a shelf the last piece to seal his emotional breakdown.

The doll Katherine looked down on him with her glass eyes, still dressed in gaudy though now faded pink ruffles, brown curls a frizzy mess from over-brushing.

“Oh my god,” he whispered as the doll began to blur and swim before his eyes.

Cosette followed his teary gaze. “Oh,” she whispered, her smile softening. “You gave that to me.”

Grantaire tightened his mouth and nodded. “Yeah,” he said, embarrassed at the way he couldn’t speak the single word without his voice warbling and cracking.

“Come here,” Cosette said, and patted the bed beside her. Feeling weak at the knees, Grantaire heeded her and came to settle on the edge of the bed. He wiped the tears from his eyes and tried not to feel too self-conscious. This was so wildly different from what he’d imagined tonight would be.

“Do you really get what you did for us, Grantaire?” Cosette narrowed her eyes, searching his face for understanding. Grantaire shrugged.

“I took care of you,” he forced out. “The best that I could. God knows nobody else was.”

Cosette blushed. Staring at her folded legs, she swept a hand through her hair, pushing it over her head in the most divine cascade of shimmering gold, and bit her lip in nervous consideration before continuing on. “My whole universe until that moment was the Thenardiers. I didn’t even go to school, Grantaire, you know that. I found out years later that they were getting government funding to ‘homeschool’ us and just fudging whatever occasional proof the state required that some actual teaching was going on. They were awful people, Grantaire… But you understand. You know. And they were _everything_ I knew about the world. Being used, hurt, degraded, mocked, deceived, worked until my feet ached and my knuckles bled. Being worthless, ugly, unwanted. Miserable.” Her voice had quieted over the course of the speech, fading now into a cracking whisper, and she wasn’t looking at him anymore. “And then, there was you.” Grantaire’s heart lurched.

“Do you remember the night that you bought Katherine for me? I could hardly understand it. For a long time, in my mind I sort of believed that Katherine was yours, that you were only letting me play with her… I can’t tell you how long it was until I really understood the concept of a gift. But that’s not what I remember most about that night.”

Grantaire looked up, curious, but her eyes were hidden by a curtain of hair as she looked at the ground.

“What I remember most is Eponine smacking me across the face, taking her away as I fell to the floor…” The memory sent nausea roiling in his stomach, and long-faded echoes of anger. “And then, you appeared.” She tucked a wave of her hair behind her ear and faced him once again. Her blue eyes burned him. “You were there, shouting, angry… For me.” Cosette paused, as though the thought amazed her still. “No one had ever defended me, not once, not ever. I had never had a shield. You were _on my side_. That moment changed my life, Grantaire.”

It was Grantaire’s turn to look away, stomach trembling with the weight of this confession.

“But there was _more_. Do you remember _Enjolras_?”

Grantaire nodded, a smile flickering across his face. The tiny thing in his massive hoodie, thrusting a receipt at Eponine. Little toothless lion. Look how far he had come.

“That night, you gave me not one defender but _two_. _You_ did that, Grantaire. Enjolras was half-wild before you, barely human. He was a skittish feral animal. He loved me, he did, he was my comfort, my other half, my twin. But he couldn’t help me, or anyone else. He didn’t even speak aloud, except to me. He would not ever have set foot in that kitchen and faced Eponine’s fury if you had not done for us what you did. _You_ did that. And the person he is now, my beautiful, vicious, righteous brother with a plan to uncorrupt the word - _you_ did that. You gave him what he needed to become what he could be.”

Grantaire took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to hold it all in - he felt like he was wrapped around a bomb. But as the breath passed his lips and he sank further down into the plush bedspread, he grasped at calm within himself. “Then why - Why is he doing this? All this running and hiding?” he asked, and couldn’t keep his voice from shaking.

Cosette sighed and glanced out the dark window. “Well, there’s the obvious one,” she said sadly. “You could out him.”

“I would never do that! He has to know that I wouldn’t do that to him!” Grantaire’s tone edged with anger but it betrayed desperation.

“He really, really doesn’t. Especially not after last week.” Cosette paused, letting it sink in, and Grantaire lowered his head into his hands. “Aside from his family, coming out has gone so _horribly_ for him… Between his ex - well, then boyfriend, paramour thing - and his classmates, augh, and then last semester there was this - well. I’m getting ahead of myself, that’s all his to share and not mine. Point is, right now, he has finally arrived at a point in his life where apart from his family, _no one_ knows that he is trans. They all see him as a boy like any other. That is where he wants to be, it’s the only way that he feels safe. But now you’re here. Surely you can understand how that scares the hell out of him.”

Grantaire nodded mournfully into his palms. “I fucked up at that meeting but I would never _really_ … I wish he knew that I’m not that kind of person.”

“He doesn’t know what kind of person you are.”

Grantaire looked up at Cosette, brows knitted in confusion. “He _knew_ me -”

“Listen. That’s the other part of this. The part that’s not as simple.”

Grantaire sighed. He hoisted himself farther up the bed, crossing his legs and settling in. “I’m listening.” Cosette did the same, arranging herself back against the pillows to face him. She hugged a lilac pillow to her chest, chewing on her lip again and considering carefully before she spoke.

“I’ve tried to help you understand what you did for us. For a time in our lives, you were all the good in the world - where it began and where it ended. What you did for him helped _define_ him. Changed the course of his life, and mine. If that feels like an awful lot of weight to put on one adolescent boy, well, it ought to. That’s sort of the problem.”

Grantaire felt his hands begin to shake again. He nodded.

“In the years since you’ve been gone, you became to us like... a figure of mythological proportions. If there was a difference between you and a guardian angel, we couldn’t find it. And now, Enjolras is being confronted with the fact that you were real after all.”

Grantaire’s eyes widened.

“You weren’t some guardian spirit sent to watch over him, watching over him still… You were just an ordinary boy that briefly loved us. And I think that, more than anything else, Enjolras is terrified of knowing who you are now. He’d rather keep you a stranger than a human being.”

Grantaire was still for a little while, processing. “I suppose I can relate,” he replied quietly. “Truthfully, my love for you was anything but brief.”

Cosette stared, vulnerability shining through her eyes.

“I painted him just a few months ago,” he admitted. “And not for the first time. In the last six years I painted him often. You a few times as well. I suppose I was trying not to forget… But every painting was less a person and more an idol. I’ve dabbled in my parent’s religion and Jehan’s practices, but if I’m honest, I’ve never had anything closer to a faith than Enjolras. How unkind is that to do to a child? An old friend? To make a god of them? I can relate, I guess, to forgetting that he was real. To not wanting, now, to know that he is real, and nothing like I’d imagined.”

Cosette nodded slowly. “The two of you need to talk. But he needs to decide that he’s ready for that, and as courageous as he often is… Fear is still a battle that he fights every day. Constantly. Endlessly, irrationally, swinging at phantoms in the night…”

Grantaire snorted gently. “A childhood like yours will do that to you…”

Cosette affirmed him with a pained smile. She kneaded the pillow in her hands, squirming uncomfortably. “You remember our life,” she said, and it sounded half a question. “From before.”

“Of course I do. I couldn’t forget it.”

“When I… When I try to talk about it… I have to create it all from scratch… And that’s so burdensome, so overwhelming… Every time I try to tell someone new, it never makes sense, it’s this pitiful jumble of tragic nonsense that all sounds like lies... It was my entire childhood, where do I even begin? But you remember. You were there. I don’t have to explain a thing to you.” Her eyes found his, wide and uncertain, and he could see the ghost of her eight-year-old self in them.

“Yes. I understand.”

“They taught me that there was no amount of being good, better, _perfect_ that could protect me. I was helpless to predict or control their cruelty. My father has never raised his voice at me, let alone his hand, and I still look with such paranoia for anger in his eyes… Every tone I can’t quite parse out is a threat or meant to mock me… And in the face of fear I’m meek and accepting, there is nothing that I can do. I’m powerless.”

Anger and despair flared again in Grantaire. Once more, he thought of Eponine, and felt shame bubble up in his gut.

“But Enjolras is different. Their _neglect_ of him taught him that ultimately, his success or his failure - his _survival_ \- is in his own hands. I’m a slave to the certainty of my powerlessness but he’s a slave to his fear of it. Nothing scares Enjolras more than lack of control. He’s built his life around plans and rituals that ward off the terror of helplessness. He is so wildly careless with himself… Reckless, cruel even… Because nothing he can do to himself scares him as much as ceding control, even passively.”

Befor Grantaire could respond, Cosette’s phone buzzed, and she picked it up quizzically.

**[From: _~Prince Charming~_ 19:21]**

>> _For someone who threw a party to hit on the birthday boy you’re spending a lot of time alone in your bedroom with another dude… :O_

Blushing and grinning, Cosette tapped out a response and Grantaire made an inquiring noise.

“Courfeyrac’s trying to get us back to the party,” she clarified for him.

**[From: ~ _Motherfucking Princess~_ 19:21]**

>> _You just want to know what we’re doing up here ;)_

**[From: _~Prince Charming~_ 19:21]**

>> _!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >:O_

>> _…………….true!!_

\-----------------------------------------------

Downstairs, the party thrived. The majority of the RSVPs had found their way to the secluded home, and though it was a modest attendance, goodness knows that any friends of Courfeyrac’s knew how to keep a party lively. Marius, overwhelmed, had been partially absorbed by the pile of pillows adorning one couch. He was sinking further and further into the plush abyss while a girl from down the hall of their international dorm flirted enthusiastically with him in German. She edged her bare thigh altogether too close to his for Marius’s comfort. Courfeyrac might have intervened if he hadn’t been reclaiming the DJ position from Jehan after Marina and the Diamonds had transitioned into a chillwave remix of Gregorian chants.

Bahorel had found a place at the table, where he was intently staring at the trio of cakes, his ears tuned in to the slightest sign that he was allowed to eat them. Feuilly, who had become accustomed to keeping one eye on their dogs while he cooked, found himself periodically glancing at him in much the same watchful way. The two of them had sworn off dancing together after it had become a challenge to see who could give the other a hard-on first. (They had only announced a cease-fire after Bahorel had started to win.)

Cosette and Grantaire’s return to the party would surely have been met with the curious, prying stares of their friends; Jehan might have urged Grantaire to get a drink from the kitchen with them only to interrogate him for news of what had transpired in Cosette’s bedroom; and this was the reception that Grantaire descended the stairs prepared to meet, but to his good fortune, this happened to coincide with an equally exciting event: The arrival of Joly and Bossuet, and between them, an unexpected Musichetta.

Cheers and hugs and greeting kisses passed chaotically between the new guests and all their friends. “You motherfuckers, we thought you were dead!” Feuilly exclaimed, an arm tight around Joly’s shoulders.

“You’ve brought exactly what this party needs!” Courfeyrac added, beholding Musichetta with open arms.

“More girls!” Bahorel cried.

“A _mixologist_!” Courfeyrac corrected as Feuilly socked Bahorel in the ribs.

_«_ _500 puns?_ _»_ Grantaire signed to Joly, eyebrow and grin both quirked hopefully. Joly was left to answer him as Bossuet and Musichetta were swept into the living-room-turned-dance-floor.

_«_ _500 puns,_ _»_ Joly confirmed, beaming and blushing, and he reached up to receive Grantaire’s thrilled high five.

_«_ _Tonight?_ _»_ Grantaire asked. He was shocked to imagine that Joly and Bossuet had hit the bar before the birthday party, but he was struggling to imagine another reason for bringing Musichetta along to a party of people she didn’t know… Unless…

_«_ _Last night,_ _»_ Joly returned sheepishly, and confirmed Grantaire’s suspicion.

Grantaire rushed into him, clapping him loudly on the back. “Way to _go_!” he laughed out loud. “No fucking wonder you’ve been MIA!”

Joly nodded, his round face not terribly distinguishable from a tomato in that moment. _«_ _My phone did not come to bed,_ _»_ he explained, giggling silently but unable to look Grantaire in the eye, _«_ _and we didn’t leave bed until about an hour ago..._ _»_

From afar, Jehan watched this exchange folded up in an arm chair as they nursed a cherry coke with malibu. Though they weren’t half as skilled at LSF as Grantaire the meaning was plain and it had them sighing into their drink and wondering with a damp flutter in their belly what the sign for ‘threesome’ was. They cast a glance to Combeferre, enjoying his own (plain) cherry coke tucked awkwardly between an end table and a standing lamp and tapping his foot to the music, and to Courfeyrac, who was whispering to the pillow-pile that was Marius and gesturing to Cosette across the room.

The morning after their tryst, Jehan had woken with their head nuzzled firmly in Combeferre’s armpit and sweat collecting in the space between Courfeyrac’s arms and their stomach. Combeferre had kissed them sleepily with dry, cracked lips and morning breath. He’d run a hand though Jehan’s bird’s nest of hair and whispered an invitation for them to stay for strawberry crepes. Courfeyrac, still sleeping, had smeared a sticky smudge of drool across their shoulder as he turned his head away from the light of the window. Jehan had declined. They gathered their clothes from the floor, refused a ride, and walked home in smudged makeup and last night’s party dress. When they arrived at home they’d stripped again, sunk into a hot bath and cried until the water was cool. Then, they’d dried off, dressed in pajamas, toasted a bagel for breakfast and moved on with their life.

Well. Ha.

Making a beeline for Grantaire’s penis every time they started to get a little too sad didn’t really seem to count as moving on.

Neither did flirtatiously unfolding their legs the second Courfeyrac looked away from Marius and made eye contact with them across the room.

While Marius made a red-faced getaway from the crowd, Courfeyrac left him to it and rose to saunter through the spirited dancers, nearly catching a blow from the swing of Musichetta’s hips, over to Jehan.

Jehan saw Courfeyrac approaching them at the bar, saw him down between his legs as they lay sprawled on the coffee table, saw him drooling against their shoulder, peaceful in sleep.

“ _Ça va_ , heartbreaker,” they cooed to him as he perched on the chair’s arm and folded his thick legs on Jehan’s lap. Jehan lay a hand across his thigh, the contact and closeness making them dizzy and lightheaded with unsettling immediacy.

“We’re at a party together,” Courfeyrac lilted back suggestively, though Jehan couldn’t quite put together what they were suggesting.

“We are,” they confirmed, bemused.

“You said that’s how you met me. You saw me at a party. You said you were afraid.” He leaned down, wrapping himself around Jehan so he could whisper devilishly into their ear. “What would you have done… If you hadn’t been?”

Dragged you into the bathroom. Demanded your cock before even demanding your name. Spread myself open for you faster than… “You horrendous slut,” Jehan giggled, shoving playfully at Courfeyrac, who burst into giddy laughter and squirmed with delight on their lap. Redness crept over both their faces, something daunting hanging between their eyes until Courfeyrac looked away; the gentle, slight movement struck Jehan’s heart as though he’d bolted. “How’s Marius,” Jehan squeaked, almost too quietly to be heard over the din. They coughed, trying to kick their voice back into gear.

“Oh, well enough. I know he looks a bit like a rabbit in a foxhole, doesn’t he? But he _is_ enjoying himself, I can tell. Real keen on Cosette, the fucker is, but I can’t convince him to actually _talk_ to her… Wouldn’t they be sweet together? I think he’s sneaking off for a bit of air, but when he comes back I think we’ll cut cake, how does that sound?” Courfeyrac rambled nervously, glancing around at the heavy-laden table and the light crowd of the room.

“Oooh, yes,” Jehan rushed their response, coughing again awkwardly. They stared down at their hand atop Courfeyrac’s thigh, taking in his warmth, the twitching movements beneath, and then glanced to Courfeyrac again to find him staring back. “Though to be frank,” they said, trying to force casual certainty into uncertain territory, “I could use some air myself. Want to explore the garden with me?”

From his corner, Combeferre watched Jehan and Courfeyrac dart through the crowd and out a glass patio door into the chilly evening. He followed their silhouettes until they disappeared into the black behind the blur of reflections.

Courfeyrac had been eerily silent on the matter of Jehan since that night, Combeferre noted. He’d caught the man staring with one same distraught expression at his phone more times than he could count in the week that followed, as though he were longing for some message, or painfully refraining from sending one. This was not quite how Combeferre had intended things to go. In the pit of his stomach, he worried that he had made things immeasurably worse; but Courfeyrac and Jehan disappearing outside together was a good sign, he assured himself.

“You’ve lost your dates,” a light voice commented beside him.

“Date,” he corrected absentmindedly, looking down to find Cosette at his side. “No plurals… Yet.”

“Pity,” she said, sipping rum. “Joly and Bossuet seem to have no qualms about plurality.” She indicated the trio grinding ass-to-crotch on the dance floor. “And with what a woman. She looks like an amazon! I’m jealous.”

“Oh, yes, she certainly looks…”

“...Like she could kick their asses and look hot doing it…”

“I wouldn’t doubt that that appeals to them.” Combeferre chuckled, taking a sip of his coke. “Say, what about your date?”

“The one who hasn’t said a word to me yet?” Cosette rolled her eyes, but she was swallowing a smile. “I’m not sure I’d call it a date at this point. Courfeyrac assured me that the pair of them spent at _least_ an hour on my instagram, but if he genuinely returned my interest, he isn’t showing it…”

“Oh, poppycock. Running and hiding _is_ showing interest for that dotty little thing.” Combeferre grinned, endeared. “If he hasn’t said a word to you, he’s probably head over heels. He’s a nervous sweetheart, but he _is_ a sweetheart. If I were you I’d make the first move; but don’t flirt, just be sweet. Pretend you’re talking to a baby bunny for whom the equivalent of wolves is sexual advance.”

“I’ll take your advice to heart. I will gently woo that rabbit.”

“Atta girl. And speaking of the price of tea in China, you and Grantaire were gone for a good little while…”

“Oh, poo, you’re no better than Courfeyrac!” Cosette giggled and tapped his arm playfully. Combeferre swayed back and forth on his heels, content to drop the subject, but to his surprise Cosette took it up. “It was good. It was good, and I’m happy. I really love him, Combeferre, and from Enjolras’s terror I began to get frightened myself, like maybe he was some drunken asshole boor after all… But it’s all plain to see now. Though they do need to talk, and frankly, Grantaire _ought_ to provide some sort of explanation as to the whole… Eponine business. I want to understand… I want to understand how it came to be that he could watch her… Watch her do what she did, and still stand at her side six years later…”

Combeferre nodded mournfully. “Cosette, I’m sorry. I can’t guess how hard that is for you. I’ll be honest - I am a friend to her, and I am ignorant to what she did to you. But my ears and my mind are open and ready to listen.”

Cosette looked upward to meet his eyes. “As are mine, Combeferre. Truly, they are. I _do_ want to understand. Enjolras may not, though... I don’t know. It’s so odd to me how identical twins can share so _much_ biology and still operate on such fundamentally different wavelengths of the mind…”

“...Fraternal?”

“Hm?”

“You and Enjolras are fraternal twins. Identical twins are always the same sex.”

Cosette’s eyes widened. “ _Shit_ , of course! Haha, I always get those confused,” she stammered. “Fraternal twins. Still. Twins. Oh my, this rum is acting more quickly than I thought,” she giggled, a little too loudly, and gulped down another swallow of her drink. Combeferre raised an eyebrow.

After Feuilly’s unsuccessful attempts to goad Grantaire into a game of beer pong - he really was making an honest effort to stay sober tonight, and although he had already caved to two glasses of coke and rum, he could at least manage to say no to a whole table-full of beer - Grantaire escaped to the kitchen. A bad idea maybe, as that was where much of the alcohol was, but it was also where some of the quiet was, and Grantaire could use a few minutes to soak in his conversation with Cosette. But as he approached the kitchen he could make out the whispered words of a private conversation between mysteriously unseen individuals.

“She’s the most unnervingly beautiful woman I have ever _seen_ … Just looking at her instagram made me want to throw up a little, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now that she’s actually a real live human being right in front of me! It’s like staring into the _sun_ …”

“Wear sunglasses, mate. You’ll look cooler anyway.”

Grantaire rounded the island (stacked with towers of glistening, tempting bottles) to find the speakers sitting on the tile floor leaning against the lower cabinets.  Marius, and…

“ _Gav_? What the _fuck_?”

The filthy little urchin adjusted her backwards baseball cap and took a sip from her glass. “R, I’m ten, you can’t say ‘fuck’ around me.”

“Fuck I can’t, Fuck are you doing here? Fuck did you get here? _Fuck are you drinking?_ Marius are you seriously sitting here letting her chug wine?”

“No, I made Kool-aid!” Marius chirped brightly. He held a glass out to Grantaire. “Want some?”

“ _You_ might be drinking Kool-aid.” He snatched the glass from Gav, who pouted as it left her reach, and took a swig. “Ha, yeah. _Kool-aid_. Gav, you’re gonna hang out in Cosette’s bedroom and sleep off your baby buzz until someone can take you home. How the fuck did you get here?”

“ I hid in the bed of Bahorel’s pickup, _duh_. Easy peasy. Hey, ah, _fuck_ -” Grantaire lifted her up by the waist and threw her over his shoulder. Half-heartedly she beat against his back before succumbing to being carried away. “This is terrible. You’re a funsucker. It’s just a little wine. I can party! Ugh.” She slumped against him. “Didn’t we know someone called Cosette?”

Grantaire’s heart thudded a little. Shit. “Yes, um.” There wasn’t any sense in lying, he supposed. He didn’t approve of lying to children. “The very same, in fact.”

“Woah,” Gav replied, but that was all she had to say about that. Gav had been four years old when Cosette and Enjolras had been adopted; considering how seldom their names were spoken after that it was a surprise to Grantaire that she recalled them at all. Maybe he could somehow pull this off without an awkward reunion -

“What is _that_?” Ha ha ha fuck. He heard the shocked exclamation only moments before he hit the stairs and froze, turning slowly. Cosette stood behind him, Combeferre on her arm.

“Ah, well, we have a stowaway…” Grantaire patted Gav’s legs and she sighed huffily, followed by a light burp. Grantaire smiled, wondering how much wine she’d gotten away with guzzling before she’d been found out. Little shit. “Cosette, you’ll remember, um, Gavrielle Thenardier?” Gav twisted, grabbing and yanking at Grantaire’s shoulders and hair to turn around and see who he was talking to, blinding him in the process. “She surreptitiously hitched a ride with Bahorel and Feuilly,” he explained, stumbling to keep balance as Gav used him like a jungle gym. “Sorry. Ha. Um. I was wondering whether I could put her up in your bed until someone can take her home?”

Cosette was wide-eyed and Grantaire searched her face for any of the terror he’d seen upon Enjolras when he’d laid eyes on Eponine; but if there was any there beneath the honest surprise, he couldn’t find it. He saw her hand flutter to her chest, a guarding movement, and wondered for a moment whether the ability to hide fear was a survival mechanism that Cosette had engineered more soundly than Enjolras had, but a nervous smile flashed across her face before he could stammer out some alternative. “Of course, it’s no problem. That’s quite alright.”

“Oo...kay,” Grantaire confirmed hesitantly. “I’ll get someone to take her soon, and anyway she’s sure to be asleep pretty quickly, she was sneaking wine -”

Grantaire was interrupted by an abrupt commotion: the familiar bustle of a new arrival, the yawning of the door and the sound of a coat and shoes being discarded as people curiously flocked to the entrance hallway to greet them. He looked through the crowd, trying to determine who’d arrived so late. “I thought you weren’t coming,” he heard Feuilly remark with an ounce of dread in his voice.

“I changed my mind! I do like to socialize now and then, believe it or not… Do I need to RSVP to my own home?”, a familiar voice replied, and Grantaire felt his stomach drop.

“Oh dear,” Cosette whispered, whipping around in a flurry of golden-rose-sea foam hair.

Gav, still scrambling awkwardly on Grantaire’s shoulders, was also straining to get a look. As the party shuffled out of his way, he came into view, and Grantaire’s heart began to pound the way it always seemed to in the presence of Enjolras.

“Hey,” Gav declared above his head, mercifully low under the clamor of conversation and Lady Gaga. “I remember her.”

Enjolras’s warm gaze found Grantaire across the room and fell dreadfully cold. The smile drained from his face.

“Okay kiddo, you’re going the fuck to bed,” Grantaire squeaked out. He turned on his heels and bolted up the stairs.

_My God, we must stop meeting like this_ , he thought to himself with a bitter, joyless laugh.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ?? In case you haven't heard the phrase before, "speaking of the price of tea in China" is just a way of segueing into a completely unrelated topic. I know I have lots of non-American readers and I dunno what the reach of that particular colloquialism is.
> 
> ANYWAY!! Next week I'm going out of town to visit my boyfriend!! So I'm not gonna get much done!! In light of that, I'm pushing my next update out one week. So I'll be updating in three weeks, on May 6th. Thanks for your patience guys!! The next chapter is a pretty intense one!! Shit hits the fan for both of our favorite couples!! I'll see you in three weeks!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit, meet fan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for the chapter: 
> 
> Sexual content, smoking, alcohol, a comment that could be interpreted as racist? (which is immediately called out), infidelity, direct confrontation/conflict, ENJ AND GRANTAIRE BOTH BEING FUCKING *MEAN*!

In the evening glow of Saturday night, Enjolras Fauchelevent was draped contently across his couch with one hand wrapped around a slowly emptying glass of white wine and the other tucked casually down the front of his sweatpants. The low, soulful rasp of Amy Winehouse swelled throughout his loft apartment and lulled the boy into bliss as he lightly stroked the front of his boxers where the cotton was growing damp under his fingers. Sipping his wine and sinking deeper into the couch cushions, Enjolras sighed heavily with the satisfaction of an evening well spent.

He’d already been interrupted twice by the buzz of his phone announcing a snap from Courf, so the third time was no surprise. He slowed his fingers to an idle pace, teasing the sensitive skin at the crease of his thighs, and put his glass of wine aside to open the photo.

Feuilly’s flat, unamused expression filled most of the shot. He caught Enjolras off guard; the last two had been selfies of Courf with various other partygoers, many of whom were strangers to Enjolras. Liquid dripped down the side of Feuilly’s face and soaked his light stubble. “Beer pong splash back xP”, Courf’s caption read. His breath hitching, Enjolras pressed the heel of his palm down on himself, squirming into it until the image disappeared. He discarded his phone on the coffee table again, took up his glass for another sip, and lay his head back against the cushions.

Feuilly’s face swam before his closed eyes. He did feel just a little guilty, a little dirty, touching himself and thinking of a friend… But he’d given up some time ago on imagining faceless lovers and shadows bringing him to pleasure. Invariably they morphed into one face; one black-skinned, black-eyed face looking down on him, and that would be the end of his play, and he’d need a Xanax and a phone call to Cosette to recover.

Still above his boxers he alternated between light, long strokes and bursts of concentrated energy to his - cock? Clit? He still didn’t know, but this was _not_ the time to overthink. He imagined stubble-rough kisses to his throat, a strong, scarred hand replacing his own between his thighs… It dipped beneath his underwear, skimming through the thatch of hair, plunging down into slick flesh. _You’re so wet, Enjo_ , he heard, savoring the pet name that belonged to Feuilly alone, exaggerating the man’s luscious accent for himself.

He envisioned the man’s head between his legs, imagined the wet stripe of a tongue, sank fingers deeper inside, contemplated the rough scratch of a beard over pink skin as he plied himself. In his mind he gripped dark hair between his fingers, yanked the silky length… Sensuous, murky green eyes peered up at him. Enjolras gasped, bucking into his hand. This was not Feuilly anymore.

Enjolras stopped abruptly, taking a moment to breathe and recover. His abdomen was trembling and a bead of sweat dripped down his neck. The disturbing intrusion of Grantaire’s image stung raw in his mind. He recalled Grantaire with his filthy eyes and one hand in Jehan Prouvaire’s lap. Enjolras bit down on his lip, replaying the memory of Jehan’s overtly sexual cry. That fucking bastard had burst into his place of safety, the seat of his life’s work, to defile and make a mockery of something sacred to him. _You were mistaken_. Enjolras palmed himself roughly, concentrating on the image of Grantaire’s unabashed stare.

Grantaire’s drunk, wine-soaked lips. His breath surely reeked of booze but he’d never been quite close enough to know. Enjolras pressed two fingers back inside himself. Grantaire’s ugly smirk, the depths of his shadowy eyes, the tousled fall of his greasy hair. His hands in Enjolras’s hair, running a brush over the endless blonde locks, tugging gently. His young form standing out in their wasteland yard, laughing mouth curved around trails of cigarette smoke. Enjolras spread his legs and rutted his hand helplessly. Anger, fear and arousal curled in the pit of his belly. His heart pounded uncomfortably. _Why do you_? That piece of _shit_. The farther he chased it, the farther away his climax fled. An irate groan wrenched itself from his throat and Enjolras tore his hand out of his sweatpants, wiping the slick on the cotton. Fucking good-for-nothing bastard couldn’t even make him come. If he’d felt dirty thinking of Feuilly, he felt disgusting after this. He gulped down the last of his wine and let tears brim against his eyelashes.

Another snap had come in - Still Courfeyrac, this time posing in front of three birthday cakes. Cosette and Bahorel were grinning in the background. Enjolras huffed unhappily. He knew there was a reason he avoided things like this, knew what it felt like to feel trapped in a crowd, trapped in a conversation, giving all the wrong answers, being stared at, glared at as he shook apart without escape… But every time the amis did something like this, he got to watch from the outside and hear about the memories made for weeks to come. That was its own kind of misery. He wasn’t sure the anxiety of social events was really all that more unbearable than the anxiety of exclusion. It might he better, he wondered, to go and be with the people he loved than to drink alone and think about Grantaire.

So determined, Enjolras rolled of off his couch and set about changing out of stained sweats and into something a little more appropriate for a Party de Courfeyrac.

\------------------------------------

What a hideous mistake.

In the eye of the crowd, Enjolras watched through the swirl of bodies as that FUCKING _FUCK_ turned tail and shuffled his ass up the stairs - _his_ stairs, in _his_ house - with some scruffy-ass _Thenardier-looking_ whelp on his shoulders. Rage boiled in his core, sinking low, shaking his thighs and screaming against his groin. He felt hands grabbing at him, staining his skin, and he smacked them away with a gasp. Feuilly drew his hands back like he’d been bitten. Enjolras stared at him, feeling bitter salt rise in his eyes again. He heard the man’s voice from far away, off behind the waterfall drumming in his ears. “ _Courf and Cosette said you weren’t coming_ ,” it echoed. There were too many people all of a sudden, watching and judging, reaching and clawing, and Enjolras looked around at the blur of faces wildly, all of them angry, all of them threatening, he felt his heart lobbing in his chest, oxygen thinning in the air as he choked it down --

Cosette loomed before him, and her soft hands upon his were the only ones that didn’t burn. The world moved around him, parting and gliding, the walls of his home passing by until Cosette leaned him against the island in their kitchen, alone with a city of glass bottles. He gripped the marble in his hands and closed his eyes. Her voice rocked against his mind, white noise like the rush of the ocean, drowning out thought, saying nothing real. He concentrated on her sound and the labored rise and fall of his own chest.

“-- your medicine? Enjolras, can you answer me? Do you need your medicine?” He shook his head and leaned forward, falling slowly into her shoulder. She wrapped arms around his back and soothed a hand over his hair. He’d woven such a careful french braid when he thought this would be fun.

Words died in his stomach. They couldn’t even begin their journey to his mouth. His lips felt cemented shut.

_I hoped for years that you wouldn’t give up on me_ , they said, stirring inside of him. _That someday I would turn a corner and you’d be there, out of breath, you’d have found me at last. And here you are, and you just won’t give up, and I_ hate _you for it. I am_ crazy _._

“You ready to talk?” Cosette whispered. He shook his head. “Want to listen?” He hesitated, and nodded.

“You said that you weren’t going to come. Very unambiguously. If I had known, even suspected, that you would do this I would never have invited him here. But you said you wouldn’t come, and I wanted to see him. Can you understand that?”

Enjolras pulled back and met her eyes warily. Slowly, he nodded. He parted his lips, struggling for speech. “And the brat?”, he rasped.

“... _Gavrielle_ , yes. That Gavrielle. An accident. I didn’t invite her. For the record, neither did he. She was an infant, Enjolras, don’t condemn her for a surname.”

“I don’t condemn her for a surname, I condemn her for a _species_. When the cub is at your feet the mother is nearby,” Enjolras spat with vitriol.  

“That valid concern aside, I am rather morally offended that you would liken that child to an animal. This is _not you_. Not you, who seeks to uncorrupt the world. Who believes that we are all born pure! But not Gav? What’s _happened_ to you? I lost you once, Enjolras, I won’t do it again! Get a _grip_!”

Enjolras startled, stung, his eyes wide. Cosette had no anger in her face; she never did, not ever; but her words rattled him all the same.

“I think you should talk with Grantaire,” she said soberly. “I have. He’s not what you think. He’s not what you ever thought he was. Please, go and learn what he _is_.”

Enjolras turned his head away, color coming to his cheeks.

After a long moment, Cosette sighed. “You look very handsome tonight,” she commented softly, looking him up and down. Enjolras appreciated the change of subject, giving his mind a moment of rest from the stress of the situation at hand. He’d squeezed himself into sinfully tight black leather pants - Courfeyrac had just about cried when he discovered that Enjolras owned a pair, and was always begging him to wear them more often - and a faintly sheer burgundy button-up. He often fantasized about wearing it with nothing underneath, but his scars were still too obvious to risk it, even though you couldn’t _really_ see anything through the material. To be safe he always paired it with a black singlet.

Cosette’s eyes lingered on his groin, and she giggled abruptly. “Are you…?”

Enjolras self-consciously grabbed himself. “Is it too obvious? I kind of hate this thing, it’s not really -”

“No, no, it’s fine! Very natural. Well, maybe a _little_ well-endowed.” She giggled again, a hand fluttering to her mouth.

Enjolras groaned. The thing was more trouble than it was worth. With pants this tight he knew he should just have opted for a sock instead.

“What if I just crawled upstairs and locked myself in your room for the rest of the night,” Enjolras suggested, knowing already that his sister would discourage him.

“Gav occupies it,” Cosette replied sheepishly. Enjolras looked up. Nausea lurched in his stomach. A Thenardier child in _their_ bedroom? What sick irony.

“Have some wine, Enjolras. Get a little buzz going and relax. This party can still be fun, I’ll look after you, I won’t leave your side. If it all gets too much, you can settle down with a book in papa’s bed, he won’t be home until the morning.”

Enjolras reluctantly agreed. Turning around, he fished clumsily through the mess of bottles to find a red wine that looked appealing and poured himself a glass. “If I have a panic attack tonight or get blackout drunk or something, will you peel me off the floor?”

Cosette laughed. “You’ve never been blackout drunk in your life. But yes, Enj, as I said. I’ll look after you.”

“S-sorry to interrupt,” a voice squeaked from somewhere on the floor. “Um.”

Startled, Enjolras leaned over the island, searching wildly for the voice. He found a six foot beanpole sitting on his kitchen floor with a plastic cup filled with something that looked more like purple koolaid than alcohol. “Who the _fuck_ are you?” He shot at the intruder with mild terror.

“Eep!”, said the stranger, and scrambled to his feet and darted out of the kitchen.

“ _Enjolras_!”, said Cosette. “You remember _Marius_.”

\----------------------

“I remember her, that girl,” Gav was insisting as Grantaire settled her into Cosette’s bed. “She’s Cosette’s sister, right? I don’t remember Cosette really, but I remember her. I always saw her in the middle of the night. Sometimes I thought I was the only one who could see her.”

Grantaire chuckled and sighed, tucking the comforter around Gav. “Me too,” he murmured. “But Gav, I need you to listen to me. Are you listening?”

Gav groaned. “I _know_ , I’m sorry for sneaking in I _guess_ , and I’m sorry for stealing wine, I _guess_ -”

“Oh shut up, no you aren’t,” Grantaire cut her off. “I don’t give a shit anyway. This is about... Who you just saw.” He stopped and chewed his tongue, trying to find the best way to explain this to the kid. Gav was smart, and had exposure to this sort of thing in decent doses, so he doubted that comprehension or acceptance would be a big problem - but _fast_ adjustment was _mandatory_. “You know Jehan, how she’s a girl sometimes? And he’s a boy other times? And sometimes they’re something else completely?”

“Yes,” Gav confirmed warily. Gav really had done a very good job with Jehan, though Grantaire was never sure whether it was an actual conceptualization of the fluidity of gender or just an obedience and respect of Jehan’s wishes.

“That person - Enjolras - is the same, sort of.” Grantaire paused, still struggling with the words. “He’s trans, Gav. But he’s  a he all the time. That’s all he is. Do you get me? Enjolras is a boy. We didn’t know it then, but he is.”

“Oh,” Gav said flatly. Grantaire swore he could sense the gears turning in her head. “I said the wrong thing.”

“Yeah you did, but this isn’t like Jehan, who will just correct you. This is bigger than that. If you use the wrong words for Enjolras, you could really put him in danger. You could fuck shit up for him. If you don’t think that you can remember to use the right words, don’t speak about him at all. Okay?”

“Oookay… Did I fuck up? Downstairs, I said ‘her’, was that-”

“It was pretty loud down there, I don’t think anyone heard you. You got lucky. Well, _Enjolras_ got lucky. So, you do follow me, right?”

“Yeah, I follow you, I’m not _stupid_ , just tipsy.” Gav smirked and Grantaire sighed again, satisfied enough.

“Okay, kiddo. Now keep your ass in bed. I’m not kidding, stay the fuck put, none of your sneak nonsense. Not tonight. This is _important_. Okay?”

“Okay,” Gav grumbled and launched herself under the covers.

\-------------------------------

Night breezes guided Jehan and Courfeyrac along the winding garden path. Lights at their feet blinked to life as they passed, illuminating the wild tangles of thorns and bare branches and the occasional hardy winter bloom with its petals closed to the moon and the frigid air. Courfeyrac had draped his denim coat around Jehan’s slight shoulders, and with one hand Jehan clutched it to themself and with the other they brought a quivering cigarette to their mouth.

“I’ll bet this garden is a glory in the spring. We should come and see it then,” Courfeyrac said absently, eyes fixed on cracks on the great stone wall so that they would not be fixed on Jehan’s red cheeks.

“This garden is a glory now,” Jehan replied. “Gardens are the prettiest graveyards in the winter. Look at these tiny ghosts that bloom.” They indicated the shivering white snowdrops scattered over the dead ground. “The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.”

“What’s that from?” Courfeyrac inquired, his mind racing to place the familiar quote in literature.

“Disney’s Mulan,” Jehan replied, giggling, and paused by a rusting garden bench. “Sit with me while I finish this cigarette?”

Courfeyrac conceded happily and they sat side by side, pressing against each other for warmth. Courfeyrac’s heart jumped quickly underneath his light sweater. He swore Jehan could hear it.

“Did Cosette tell you anything?” Jehan asked, tapping their cigarette and sending ashes fluttering into the dead grass.

“About... what she and Grantaire discussed? Regretfully, no. Will he tell you?”

“Were it any other matter, I’d be certain he would. But of all things Enjosette, Grantaire has been strangely quiet.” Jehan took a long, thoughtful drag. Their brows furrowed as they breathed it out. “What do you think it all was? Their… powerful history?”

Flashing images of Jehan’s mouth pressed to Combeferre’s, tongues entwined while Courfeyrac perused his texts beside them. Courfeyrac steeled himself from them. “Enjolras’s history is a mystery to me,” he said quietly. “Powerful and otherwise.”

“You’ve known him since he was thirteen. You were there for some of it, weren’t you?”

“Not exactly. From six hundred miles away, you know? He was text on a screen. Not even a face to go with his name. Hell, I didn’t even _know_ his whole name. He’s always been… _ridiculously_ secretive. Combeferre and I joked that we were being catfished. It was almost a surprise when a real person turned up at school after all.”

“Powerful history,” Jehan repeated contemplatively. “The sort of history that makes a man see another’s face and run in the other direction. _Literally_. For what purpose? What fear? What is Enjolras so afraid of?”

“What was the Thenardier house like?” Courfeyrac asked abruptly.

“Do you think that’s where the answer is?”

Courfeyrac shrugged. “Couldn’t say. But by virtue of knowing that house, you know something about Enjolras that I don’t.”

Jehan considered this, watching their cigarette blow patterns into the bare branches that hung over them and trail off into the charcoal sky. “True enough,” they concluded. “It makes plain the reason he should be such an anxious person. And such a strong one. Everyone I’ve ever known to leave that house has fire in them, and charred insides.”

“It was a fucked up place, mm?”

Jehan nodded slowly. “Don’t ask me what’s fucked up though. My perception of a normal childhood is admittedly a little skewed.”

Courfeyrac gave them a long stare, and Jehan blushed under the intensity. “TMI?”, they whispered.

Courfeyrac shook his head. “Nothing is too much, Jehan. Not from you.”

Their eyes locked. Jehan shivered. “Oh, I doubt that,” they murmured, and shut themselves up with their cigarette.

\----------------------------

After downing half a glass of wine and adjusting the bulge in his pants, Enjolras took a deep breath, gave himself a brief pep talk about his own charisma, intelligence, wit and easy charm, and entered the fray alone. He’d have preferred to do it with Cosette at his side but she’d fluttered away to chase after the boy Enjolras had terrified nearly into wetting himself. The birthday boy, he’d surmised, and also the mayonnaise that his sister fancied. Whoops.

He glanced through the clusters of people scattered through his dining and living room searching for familiar faces; those he found were distant acquaintances, like Courfeyrac’s quidditch teammates laughing around the food table or a barmaid from the Musain holding Joly in her lap on a couch.

A cautious wander in that direction, dodging bodies and gazes, revealed that most of his club were gathered on that corner set of couches. They were laughing with the hands not clutching their drinks in the air. Some sort of party game, he surmised, and approached with curiosity.

“Enjolras!” Bahorel cried out heartily. “We’re playing two truths and a lie, come join us!”

“Um?” That was a rather foreboding title. Enjolras glanced around the room, looking for outs. Hiding in papa’s room was still appealing. “I don’t know how it’s played,” he admitted.

“It’s easy,” Feuilly replied. The man’s warm voice settled Enjolras’s queasy stomach. “You tell us three facts about yourself. Two are true and one is a lie. We guess which one is the lie. If we’re wrong, we drink, but if the majority guesses right, you drink. Amelia’s in the middle of her turn right now!” Feuilly indicated some blonde that Enjolras vaguely recognized from Courfeyrac’s dorm.

“Alright,” Enjolras agreed hesitantly. It was limited to facts he willingly volunteered, so it seemed safe enough - entertaining, even. He could learn about his friends. That was a pastime Enjolras wouldn’t ever pass up. He took a seat on the armrest of the couch, perched slightly above Feuilly and close enough to smell the man’s cologne.

“Okay, recount: who thinks the toothpaste thing was a lie?” Bahorel asked the group. A few hands went up. “And who thinks Amelia doesn’t speak Persian?” Several more. “And who thinks she wasn’t raised on a farm?” No hands went up.

“I’ve never lived on a farm in my life,” The girl admitted, her German accent overbearing.

Enjolras turned away as the losers drank and remarked on their discoveries of this inconsequential blonde. He scanned the room again. It was crowded with bodies, and empty. Grantaire’s bewitching eyes were nowhere to be found. He clutched his wine glass close to his chest, eyebrows furrowed and stomach sinking.

“...Owned two stag beetles as my first and only pets.” Enjolras slowly tuned back into the conversation now that Combeferre was speaking. “Second, I religiously watched all thirteen Land Before Time movies. And third, my mother packed my lunch for school until I was 16.”

The stag beetles were true, Enjolras recalled as the group laughed and discussed their options. Their names were Minerva and Archimedes. There had been an entire tag on Combeferre’s blog dedicated to them. He wasn’t sure though that stating as much was a welcome part of the game, however, so he kept quiet. As for the other proposed facts: frankly, they were equally plausible. He smiled to himself at the idea of Marjan Combeferre packing her teenage son’s lunch, complete with mother-son love notes. He could see it. And Combeferre probably loved it.

“If your mother seriously packed your lunches until you were sixteen I’m shaming you,” Feuilly stated seriously, though there was a twinkle of amusement in his golden-brown eyes.  

“Joly’s going to be pissed if the stag beetles are a lie,” Bossuet translated the dancing of his boyfriend’s hands. “He needs to see pictures. Immediately.” Combeferre’s hands twitched towards his phone, the pride of his childhood pets nearly betraying him, and Enjolras laughed aloud and nearly spilled his wine. Combeferre met his eyes knowingly and a look of amusement and pity passed between them.

“If the _stag beetles_ are the lie and the other two are _both_ true I’m double shaming you,” Feuilly added.  

“Seeing as the 14th film in the Land Before Time franchise came out literally this week and any _true_ fan would know that, I’m calling bullshit,” a darkly musical voice interjected, and Enjolras jerked towards the sound.

Grantaire was looming behind the other couch, leaning his elbows just behind Bossuet’s head. Delighted, Bossuet leaned back and patted his face. “Hello, friend,” Grantaire chuckled. He swirled a glass of dark unidentifiable alcohol.

Enjolras breathed in slowly through his nose. Grantaire’s eyes flicked to his own. They hooked his gut and yanked. Enjolras quickly looked away.

“Are you admitting to being a true fan of the Land Before Time franchise, R?” Bahorel chuckled.

“I am not confessing one way or another; I only admit to having a smartphone.” He drew the phone from his pocket and unlocked it, waving a google page.

“Cheating! Definitely cheating!” Bossuet cried.

“This isn’t trivial pursuit,” Grantaire rebutted. He was grinning wide and Enjolras noted his slightly crooked teeth, the sharp jag of his canines, and the rose curve of his lips. Enjolras wrapped an arm around his ribs and took a gulp of wine.

“Alright, alright, we’re voting,” Bahorel declared. “Hands up if Combeferre didn’t own two stag beetles.” Knowing the truth, Enjolras kept his hand down; wisely, so did the rest of the group. “And hands up if Grantaire’s right and Combeferre isn’t a true Land Before Time fanboy.” Evidently persuaded by the argument, nearly all the group’s hands went up. Enjolras saw Grantaire lift his hand, and he kept his own on his lap. “And put ‘em up if sweet Mme. Combeferre didn’t pack his lunch until he was sixteen.” Enjolras hesitantly raised his hand.

Feuilly’s went up as well. “Call it a prayer,” he joked.

“Sorry Feuilly,” Combeferre said with an embarrassed grin. “R was right. I’ve only seen eleven of the Land Before Time movies.”

The group erupted in laughter and despair and demands for elaboration as Combeferre swallowed their questions with a drink. Across all the excitement, Enjolras saw Grantaire taking a long drink of his own and looking steadily back at Enjolras. Again, his stomach lurched, but he held the gaze; heart pounding, he wouldn’t turn away; not until Grantaire did…

“R, you should have a go!” Someone suggested. Grantaire broke the stare at last and Enjolras breathed again. Grantaire swallowed.

“Sure, I’ll give it a shot. I am a pro at lying about myself.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Let’s see…” He draped his arms across the back of the sofa, propping one hand on Bossuet’s bald head, and made a show of contemplation. “I was born in the idyllic countryside surrounding Nice, heralded by the singing of doves and the blooming of autumn flowers.” Grantaire paused to drink and think to himself before continuing. “At the tender age of eight, I told my father very solemnly that I would have liked to be either a blacksmith or a ballerina, and he told me with equal sobriety that he didn’t know a thing about either, but imagined it would be easier to save up for pointe shoes than an anvil.” He stopped again with a chuckle, soaking in the rapt attention of his audience. Then, he laid eyes upon Enjolras with fearless direction. “At the considerably less tender age of fifteen, I decided that smoking myself into an early grave would cost less than becoming a professional at either.”

Enjolras swallowed around a lump in his throat. He forced himself to loosen his grip on his wineglass lest it shatter. Grantaire watched him, the merriment gone from his face, and Enjolras felt an urgency in his eyes. A desperate question posed. Things were being said around them, friends and the scattered strangers among them remarking their choices, but they were dull and quiet in Enjolras’s ears. He was certain he could only hear the breath falling steadily from Grantaire’s broad, crooked nose.

The lie was meant for him, and him only, for ends Enjolras was afraid to parse out.

Grantaire hadn’t started smoking at fifteen. He’d smoked in the yard with Montparnasse on the very night they met; only twelve, then. He had smoked with Eponine on the back porch, and out of the open attic window. He’d smelled like bitter tobacco every time he held Enjolras close. Enjolras had not been able to taste nicotine in the air without being viscerally, forcefully dragged back to Grantaire. It had been a comfort.

Enjolras knew nothing of Grantaire’s birthplace; the boy had never mentioned a desire to be a blacksmith; his third fact could have been something equally unknown to him, anything from Before Enjolras or After Enjolras; he was certain, dead certain, that the lie posed for Enjolras’s scrutiny was deliberate. He’d chosen it because he knew Enjolras would know better. Feeling irritation and anxiety simmer into a rolling boil in the pit of his gut, Enjolras took a drink and savored the harsh, bitter, cheap taste of the wine. Grantaire was using this game to toy with him. The man had dropped his eyes now, was saying something joking to someone else, but Enjolras’s racing thoughts drowned it all out.

Grantaire had asked him a question.

Enjolras wasn’t ready to answer.

“Okay, alright, who thinks Grantaire wasn’t born outside Nice with doves and flowers and shit?” Bahorel’s voice boomed, making Enjolras jump. His hands twitched as he started to panic. Breathing was getting harder, vision was sparking and blurring. If he acknowledged the lie, he’d be answering. _Yes_ , he’d answer. _I remember_ , he’d answer. _I know you better_ , he’d answer. “And who doesn’t believe the daddy anecdote?” Grantaire was looking at him, only at him. Enjolras’s hand flew up. Bombs burst in his belly.

“And who thinks that Grantaire doesn’t quite get how to play this game?” Giggles all round. Enjolras’s shaking hand withdrew to clutch his ribs again. Grantaire’s face was an unreadable mask. His mouth was a hard line in stone. “Ha ha. And who votes against the smoking thing,” Bahorel finished. What was the vote? Enjolras didn’t know. He hardly cared. He couldn’t focus.

“Well?” Combeferre demanded eagerly. “Which is it?”

“Oh, ha…” Forced laughter. Stained teeth. Enj observed the shadows along the lines of his neck as he twisted. His wrists were pulsing painfully. He’d lied. He’d lied about Grantaire’s lie. He knew. He would not admit that he knew. “I had my first cigarette at ten,” Grantaire confessed. He could hear it in his rough, shot voice. He would feel the rasps of smoke reverberating with his palm around the man’s throat. Spilling upwards from the bonfire in his chest. Making dragon song with his mouth, sparks in his clever, dirty eyes…

“You were born in Nice? I thought you were Romanian,” Feuilly interrupted Enjolras’s churning, scarlet thoughts.

“Nah,” Bahorel put in, “He’s Romani, it’s different.”

Grantaire’s eyes rolled and his smile seemed routine. “This may come as a shock to you, but it is very possible - likely even, given the high density of the double-R Rromani population in single-R Romania - to be _both_! The _more you know_! Anyway, my parents were immigrants from said motherland. I had not the privilege of being born in Nice proper, but rather in a camp at her skirts. I said as much.”

The game swept on. The barmaid took a turn next. Musichetta, Enjolras discerned from the chatter. He did not know her - none of them knew her, save Joly and Bossuet - and every fact she proposed was more outrageously badass than the last, and how could they begin to guess at the truths of a stranger? God, he couldn’t focus anyway. Grantaire kept sneaking despondent glances at him and feeding Enjolras’s jittery anger. How dare he be heartbroken that a half-human child in the pit of his trauma hadn’t remembered - had claimed not to remember - whether he _smoked_? Enjolras hadn’t known that this lush _drank_ , either, he thought with a bitter look at Grantaire’s draining glass and recalled his empty flask on the Musain table and the way he’d drunkenly begged it for another drop every five minutes. His wrists hurt. His chest hurt.

“I’ll go,” Enjolras volunteered abruptly after Musichetta’s turn. As it left his mouth he scolded himself for letting such sharpness seep through. He waited until he had the group’s attention - till he had Grantaire’s attention. “I’ve never failed a class,” he started, summoning all his daring and looking directly at the man. “I’ve never been arrested. And I’ve _never_ smoked.”

“Oh shit,” Feuilly exclaimed with a startled laugh. “One of those is a _lie_?”

“I hope he’s been arrested,” Bahorel remarked. “That’d be a badass secret.”

Enjolras and Grantaire looked at one another. Grantaire looked empty. Enjolras felt empty. This was a terrible idea.

“Votes,” Bahorel said. “Hands if you think Enjolras has failed a class.” A few hands went up, and Enjolras watched Grantaire’s indecision in his twitching fingers, the way his palm stuttered into the air and hesitated and withdrew. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know. Was Enjolras the kind of person to have never failed a class? Or break the law? Or smoke? He didn’t know. That was the _point_ , that was Enjolras’s _point_ , you don’t _know_ me, I don’t know _you_ … Good god, this had been a bad idea. Facts chosen to taunt Grantaire. Enjolras could feel the ache of regret behind his eyes that threatened tears. The chasm between them was not something he ought to have confirmed.

“Who thinks our dear little Enj has been arrested?” This time, Grantaire did raise his hand. Softly and close to his chest. Something in Enjolras sank.

“And who thinks Enjolras has sullied his golden lungs?” Only Combeferre’s hand went up, accompanied by a knowing smirk.

Enjolras forced a smile. “I quit year before last.” His vision was blurring again. If people had anything to say to that, he didn’t hear it. He made himself wait until they’d moved on to Bossuet’s turn and then slipped off the side of couch, his weak knees almost buckling, and tiptoed away.

He almost didn’t make it to the downstairs bathroom before his collapse. His knees hit the tile as the door slammed shut behind him, and from the floor he fumbled with the lock and then fell against the wall with a heavy sigh. He wished it were a sob, but everything was crushed too tightly inside of him to break open so fully. The only coherent thought he could assemble was a longing for Cosette, and a sudden burst of anger at the flavorless fuckboy currently stealing her attention. His hand smacked the ground in a frustrated flail, and instantly it stung and smarted. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t fucking see, it was all trembling and vague, and a hot tear dripped down his cheek. His hand hurt, his head ached, his wrists and chest were still pounding. The tile floor was hard and unwelcoming and he wished to lean over on the shag bath mat and fall into unconsciousness. His fucking pants were too fucking tight.

He’d quit year before last, but he’d give anything for a cigarette right now. Or something. Anything.

Enjolras tried his best to steady his breaths and hollow out his thoughts. His hands settled reflexively on his chest, counting out his heartbeat and the slow movements of his ribcage. The habit was relatively new, as habits go. He’d feel the stress and terror eating through his brain and he’d feel his chest, his flat chest, smooth and natural and his own, and he’d feel _in control_. Like his body was his _own_ and not an idol for onlookers or a plaything for obsessive anxiety. Sometimes it calmed him and sometimes it was not enough and sometimes it was too much. He leaned his head back against the wall, breathed through his nose and kept his hands laying over his scars.

In his mind’s eye, Grantaire looked heavily upon him. Anger and sadness shot through his body to the ends of his fingertips. The juncture of those two emotions rang through him in waves. _Disappointment, disappointment, disappointment_. He replayed all Grantaire’s words, the way the low scratch of them felt in his eardrums, replayed the stories he’d told. _I decided that smoking myself into an early grave would cost less than becoming a professional at either._ His Grantaire, grown up into a cynical, drunken, aimless vagabond, who reeked of the same cigarette smell that Enjolras had breathed in from his skin as a child.

A knock sounded on the door. “One minute,” Enjolras called, his voice cracking in the process. He flinched at the sound.

Climbing shakily to his feet - a real process in pants that had all his lower joints in a chokehold - Enjolras steadied himself over the sink and avoided his own eyes in the mirror. He took a few more breaths, ran the water for a moment so it seemed like he’d been doing something, adjusted his silicone junk again and then turned and opened the door.

God hated him. It was Grantaire.

“Hey,” Grantaire rasped softly.

“Auughnn,” Enjolras replied articulately.

“Want to talk?” He hovered over him, tobacco and musk and dark waves too far in Enjolras’s space. There was still a door between them. Enjolras could slam it. Grantaire looked so vulnerable.

“Wow,” Enjolras decided.

“Are you angry at me?”

Enjolras bit his lip, and he felt more than saw his knuckles go white on the doorknob. “Why are you doing this?”, he returned, avoiding his question and his eyes.

“Doing what? Trying to _talk_ to you?”

“I’m not- I’m not-”

“Not interested, I fucking know! You’ve made that abundantly clear!” Grantaire seemed more tired than angry, but it had Enjolras shaking anyway. “I know that I’m just some kid from your old foster home and you’re scared to drag all that back up but can we _please_ -”

“Not _ready_!”, he burst out. Grantaire’s sentence trailed away. His mouth closed in resignation. Enjolras gritted his teeth, terror making quick work of his filter, and the black oil he’d been holding in his mouth for weeks came spilling out. “You show up at my meeting with my _abuser_ and immediately drop my fucking dead name in a roomful of people!”, he shouted. Grantaire’s lips parted again immediately. “Then you show up _again_ , uninvited and drunk off your ass and horny and _stupid_ , and you _fight_ me and tell me that my goals, my _safety_ , is unattainable and that you don’t believe in my cause - what did you want from me, Grantaire? To run into your arms?! To say _yes_ , I remember that you _smoked_ , and then we’d just _pick up where we left off_? Who even _are you_? Do I _know_ you?”

Grantaire was quiet. His eyes were wide, sparking, then stones. “No,” he murmured. “Just a drunk asshole.”

“Now that we have that _straight_ ,” Enjolras spat bitterly. Sickness was clawing at his stomach and the inside of his throat, screaming at him to stop, but his electric nerves rattled on. He gestured to the drink still in Grantaire’s hand. “Planning the same act tonight? Going to get drunk, argue with me and fuck Jehan in my bedroom?”

“You know, Enjolras,” Grantaire whispered with thunder brimming in his voice. “I’m sorry I’m such a massive disappointment. But although I might have been hoping for a lot of unrealistic bullshit from this reunion, I can safely say that it didn’t include you being a moody, self-centered, _vicious_ teenage brat. And for the fucking record,” he thrust his glass out towards Enjolras, amber droplets splattering onto the carpet, “this is a _coke_.”

Enjolras swore he blacked out for a good six seconds.

By the time his brain was recording again, Grantaire was walking away.

\-------------------------------

Though crowned with a halo of gold and diamond light from the stars above and garden lights below, Courfeyrac’s hair was precisely the deep, velvety black of the night sky, Jehan observed. They were chilled down to the bones of their shivering fingers, but Courfeyrac was talking expressively about his beautiful, wild sisters, and Jehan would not interrupt him for the world.

They swore they were paying attention - and they were, a little. But Jehan was far less interested in Carmen and Lucia and the others than he was in the gestures of Courfeyrac’s broad hands, casting dancing shadows on their feet, and the pink wetness of his lips, and the turning muscles in the column of his handsome neck.

The pair of them were huddled close, pressed together at the thighs, but the distance from where Jehan’s hand was curled against their stomach to where Courfeyrac’s hand had come to rest on his own knee was an unbearable chasm. Jehan measured it over and over in their mind but every millimeter they inched their fingers forward was a heart-racing mile.

“Jehan? Do you think so?” At their name, Jehan’s eyes snapped up and they clutched their hand to themself again.

“Hmm?”

“I said you were so _lucky_ to be an only child!” Courfeyrac grinned, his eyebrows cocked and teasing. Jehan blushed, feeling caught out.

“I wasn’t though,” they said, returning with a smile of their own, though it did not feel like a matter to smile about.

“Lucky? Or an only child?”

“Either,” Jehan replied. “I had brothers.” Courfeyrac’s smile fell in surprise. Jehan never spoke of them; they were old ghosts, fairytale characters; but they had been real once. “Two brothers, older than I, with ruddier hair and darker eyes, and louder laughter, and faster feet, and a faithful father.”

Courfeyrac’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know that.”

The poet shrugged and pondered. The boys he’d known once didn’t really have faces anymore. “My clearest memories of them are of playing cards at our kitchen table in Belfast,” Jehan mused aloud, their gaze straying to focus on their swinging feet, “with lights low and rules I didn’t understand… Eventually they told me I was too stupid to play. I loved them though. I loved the way their voices sounded. I crawled into a cabinet at their feet so I could listen to them talk and laugh and joke. I heard them say that I was too quiet to be any fun, and too young to be smart, and too blonde to be their brother.” Courf’s expression went soft.

“My last memory is of the summer when they visited us here in France, our mother and my father and I. We were Belfast-born, city-bred, and our great old countryside home charmed them. They ran barefoot across the fields to our pond - Brendan got burs in his feet, I remember, and he didn’t cry when he saw the pinpricks of blood, but I did - then they ran too fast for me and I caught up to them wading into the muddy water up to their knees. That’s the way I remember them last. Sun glinting off the water and their auburn heads. But she died the next year, our mother did, and I never saw them again.”

“I’m sorry,” Courfeyrac said quietly. Jehan shrugged again. They smiled and tossed their hair as though shaking the memories away.

“I’ve always figured that’s how I fell in with Mont, you know?”

“Hmm?” Courfeyrac had heard the name before, Montparnasse, falling from Jehan’s lips heavy with salt and poison. An old ex. Their original attachment to that ominous place, the Thenardier home. What had ultimately become of him, Courfeyrac didn’t know, but that name always made Jehan’s eyes damp.

“I was an only child after that. More than that. The only-ness was suffocating, for a long, long time. And here was this smiling boy, older than me as they had been, tall like they were, eyes dark as theirs and darker, and I thought of times when I had not been so… only. It was easy, then. Easy to imagine he was something he wasn’t. Easy to be…”

“Taken advantage of,” Courfeyrac interjected, and Jehan nodded.

“Easy to think I could be loved instead of merely wanted. That is not so easy for me anymore.”

Courfeyrac’s stomach dropped. He saw his own hands begin to shake and told himself it was the cold. Jehan was looking wistfully out at the ghostly garden, watching trembling branches cast shadows on the old stone wall. They stroked across their face too, dark silhouettes brushing their nose and glowing cheeks, and Courfeyrac’s hand reached out before him like a phantom apart from him and touched the place where tears were forming on their eyelashes. Jehan blinked against his fingers.

“You are, you know,” he confessed in a whisper.

He was doing it. Right here, right now. Betraying Combeferre. Losing them both. In that moment it seemed to him that it had always been inevitable. It was just… in his nature.

“Loved.” His heart was sinking. He hated himself, and loved Jehan so, so much.

Jehan shook their head, slowly and deliberately. Courfeyrac didn’t understand.

When had they drawn so close? He could count Jehan’s copper freckles even in this dark; he could see the dim smudges dusted across their nose, faded with age, and the sharp and small flecks seeded by last year’s summer sun. He could even see the palest freckles that adorned their chapped lips.

Jehan kissed him.

Slow and deliberate as their refusal of his confession.

Courfeyrac kissed back, emptying his lost heart out into that sweet mouth, and he knew by now that he was sorrowfully addicted to the pomegranate taste. The world around him was dimming, everything narrowing down to Jehan’s tongue against his lips, the garden flickering out of sight, the party fading, Combeferre vanishing...

Courfeyrac pulled back. A heartbeat passed between them.

“I can’t do this,” he whispered. “I love Combeferre. I can’t do this.” Panicked, he stood, and stared at Jehan looking for the hatred and heartbreak in their eyes.

Jehan stared back. There was nothing there but dull blue. No shade of joy, of love, of pain or wanting. Just blue stones behind the shadows of stripped-bare branches.

“I- I have to go,” Courfeyrac stammered and turned back towards the house, letting Jehan disappear among the black trees and ghostly blooms.

\------------------------

Enjolras stood in the hallway for a long time.

The stairs were through the living room. If he wanted to make it to papa’s bed he’d have to pass through the party. Climbing out a window and scaling the side of the house would be less difficult.

His insides were ashes. The things he had said were things you could not take back. And Grantaire had returned them, every scathing word in equal kind. The fucking cruelty of that reduction, dismissing all Enjolras’s anxiety and trauma as moody teenage bullshit, had Enjolras burning all over with the furious desire to burn down the man on the spot… and to prove him wrong. He needed desperately for that _prick_ to know that he was _more_. He could not let Grantaire of all people believe that he was nothing but a harsh and angry child…

His own words rang through his mind. _I’ve never failed a class. I’ve never been arrested. And I’ve_ never _smoked._ A snare devised to keep Grantaire at a careful distance, after the man had extended a gentle hand to him through this ridiculous game, asked him if he remembered, asked if he still knew him. Enjolras hadn’t just answered _no_ , he’d said _fuck_ you, and Grantaire had still chased him, and he’d said it again, and again, and again, until Grantaire returned the sentiment.

Was this all they could be now? Snarling fangs, snapping at one another long distance with clever mind fuckery and up close with sharp stares and bared teeth? Had Enjolras made that choice when he ran away and ignored the man’s texts? Had Grantaire made it in the Musain with his hands on Jehan, spitting contrary bullshit with a crooked-tooth smile? Or was it simply in their design, written in the way that they had grown in these last six years, that they could never again be what they had been?

Cosette was going to be furious. No, not furious, Cosette was never angry - she would be… tired. So, so tired.

Enjolras slumped against the wall and slid down, his tight pants squeaking till he hit the carpet and dropped his head onto his knees. He ran a hand over his hair, spooled the end of his braid around a finger, and nervously tugged til his hair tie came undone.

“Enjolras?”

Enjolras’s head shot up.

Combeferre towered over him, eyes hidden by the glare of his glasses. He dropped down to his knees beside him. “Rough evening?”

Bile lurched in Enjolras’s throat. His head drooped again and he huffed out an unarticulated answer which Combeferre, of course, understood.

“Yeah,” Ferre affirmed lightly. “You didn’t expect him to be here.”

Enjolras shook his head. The carpet under his legs was blurring. Fucking Christ, he was so _over_ tearing up tonight.

“Want me to take you home?” he offered.

“I am home,” Enjolras croaked out. “Take _him_ home.”

“Do you mean that?”

A beat passed. Enjolras stared at his knees.

“Because if you seriously mean that, you know I’ll do it. Right now. I’ll go get him and he will not stay.”

Enjolras breathed steadily, in and out, concentrating on the rhythmic swell of his ribs and not on the way Grantaire’s face (wet rose lips, stubble-scarred face, leather skin, blushing violet beneath his heavy eyelids - jade eyes, soot eyes, oak eyes, velvet eyes) was still burned onto the back of his eyelids and his husky voice ran deep and low in him. He didn’t answer. He could feel himself tipping, the carpet rising towards him, till his head was resting against Combeferre’s chest. Combeferre’s great hand had come up to lay over his hair. Enjolras counted his breaths out while Combeferre’s fingers threaded themselves in his blonde locks, untangling his braid, loosing his blonde curls. Thirty inhalations came and went. Combeferre asked nothing more of him.

When Enjolras was ready, he heaved himself over onto his knees and then shakily up onto his feet. He ran a hand through his hair, tossing it haphazardly to one side.

“What’s the plan, Enjolras?” Combeferre asked. Enjolras shrugged. “Alright,” Combeferre affirmed, and followed him up into a standing position.

Enjolras could hear the party out beyond the hall. A refrain of _Happy Birthday_ was being sung. He supposed that cake was finally being cut, and he felt a flicker of guilt for not having brought any sort of gift for Marius. Maybe he could joke that his gift was his sister. Cosette would hate (love) that.

Combeferre’s fingers curled around Enjolras’s palm.

“If I go through the guest bathroom I can get to the kitchen and avoid that ruckus in the living room,” Enjolras said, strategizing aloud. His voice was hoarse and barely skirted around cracking again, but he was hard to hear over the cheers going up.

“Want me to come with you? Or leave you alone,” Combeferre asked politely, Enjolras’s small hand still lightly caught in his.

Enjolras contemplated. Combeferre was a good line of defense against unwanted interactions. He’d keep him. “You can come with if you like. What are you drinking? We can get some.”

“I’m just about at the bottom of my cherry coke,” Combeferre replied as Enjolras lead him back through the hall and into a modest peach-colored bathroom. “Next I was thinking about pilfering the pomegranate juice Cosette hides in the greens drawer…” Enjolras saw him take note of the drawing framed over the toilet, a cat hiding among flowers, signed _Cosette, age 12_.

“Ah, right,” Enjolras said as he carefully edged a white door open and took a peek into the kitchen. “You’re DD.” As he’d hoped, the hustle and bustle of distributing cake had drawn all the party-goers into the living room, and the kitchen was mercifully empty. He went out and Combeferre followed, making for the fridge while Enjolras assessed the glittering altar of alcohol. “Lucky for me, I’m not going anywhere tonight.”

“No? Staying the night?”

“I was thinking about snagging one of these bottles, taking it up to papa’s room, burying myself in his blankets and downing it. Possibly with 1000 mg of Xanax, depending on how I feel by the time I get up there.” Enjolras weighed two bottles of wine in his hands.

“That’s a horribly unfunny joke, Enjolras,” Combeferre scolded.

“You just have no sense of-” Alas, the cake spell broke too soon, as Enjolras’s sentence was cut short by a new arrival in the kitchen. Marius, slinking in along the wall as sneakily as a six foot giraffe foal could slink. Enjolras eyed him up sternly. The man had no cake, and no business being this close to an arrangement of glass bottles. “Looking for something?” Enjolras intoned.

Marius jerked unsteadily and met his eyes only briefly. “Sorry,” he said.

Enjolras raised an eyebrow and set down the bottle in his hand. He looked rather shaken, and rather pitiful.

“It’s loud out there,” Marius added to the awkward quiet.

Enjolras studied him. He shrugged. “Yep. Horribly.”

Marius nodded frantically. “They turned all the lights off and crowded around me and sung happy birthday to me and that was a _really_ nice gesture, they’re lovely people and this party is so kind, but that was terrible and I could have done without.”

Enjolras stared, and Marius turned away with a blush. “Yeah,” Enjolras replied thoughtfully. “I’m not into that sort of thing either.” His assessment of the man was evolving from bland mayonnaise to soft vanilla pudding. He did now start to seem like Cosette’s romantic type - someone who would enjoy staying up late with her, whispering secrets and painting her nails and blushing when they held hands. He thought maybe he could tolerate the man. “Sorry for barking at you earlier,” he said awkwardly. “You startled me.”

“Oh that’s alright,” Marius said, and Enjolras knew by the sunshine in his smile that it really was.

Combeferre watched this exchange with a smug smile hidden behind a glass of pomegranate juice.

“How do you say ‘death by chocolate’ in German?” a rough voice floated through the kitchen doorway, punctuated by rumbling chuckles and airy, obnoxious, feminine giggles. Enjolras swung around, air draining from his lungs. He looked with panic to Combeferre, who looked panicked right back at him.

Grantaire stumbled into the kitchen with one chocolate-frosting-coated finger between the plump red lips of that blonde from before, _Amelia_ , and his other hand wrapped around the neck of an entire bottle of vodka.

At the sight of the pair of them, Marius squeaked and made an exit through the bathroom door.

Enjolras envied him as he disappeared. He reached out for a wine bottle and his hand lingered with great restraint above it. If he touched that bottle, it _would_ break.

Grantaire’s eyes settled on him, and what mirthful light had flickered there before drained instantly into stony exhaustion. Enjolras felt that tired, disheartened, irritated, _tired_ sigh in his bones.

Blonde Bird, still giggling, wasn’t finished licking chocolate from his finger, and even had the audacity to whine like a kitten as it fell from her mouth.

Whether out of spite - and Enjolras was inclined to imagine it was spite - or the simple reflex of discomfort, Grantaire raised the vodka to his lips and took the it pure and straight from the bottle’s throat down his own. Enjolras’s esophagus burned in sympathy and his cheeks burned with ire.

God, the fucking biddie was _still_ giggling, though it seemed more like an awkward space-filler now than actual amusement or flirtation. Her dirt-green eyes were darting back and forth between the two of them, and she clutched her plate of cake close to her stomach. “Come on, R,” she urged him, touching his wrist lightly.

“Where are you off to?” Enjolras asked, keeping his tone light with great effort. He heard Combeferre sigh behind him.

“Oh, I dunno,” Grantaire drawled. “Couldn’t find Jehan, thought Amelia might suffice instead.”

Enjolras’s fingers brushed against the wine, his trim nails scraping the glossy label. “Enjolras, let’s go upstairs,” Combeferre said quietly. Blonde Bunny’s eyebrows were furrowed as she stared between the two of them, huffing out another nervous giggle, trying to figure out whether she ought to be offended. She squeezed her paper plate harder, the edges crumpling.

“That’s alright ‘Ferre, we don’t want to get in Grantaire’s way, do we?” Enjolras served back cooly. “He’s found a new blonde to fuck with.”

Barbie’s eyes narrowed as she processed. “I’m not here to get between you and your bitchy ex,” she murmured to Grantaire, and squeezed her way past him back out the door. Grantaire’s eyes shut tight. He tensed, the veins wrapping his forearms stark and blue against his skin.

“You were right, alright?” They flew open, hard and harsh. “I’m a fucking worthless, slutty alcoholic, just like you said,” he said, quietly and with much strain. Enjolras could swear he could feel the vibrations of his voice deep inside of him, rattling his veins, making his fingertips tremble against glass. “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t want to come to this fucking party. I just wanted to stay the fuck out of your way, permanently. Thank Cosette for this shit, alright, don’t blame _me_ , because I wouldn’t have been here. I just… God, _fuck_ you for _all_ of this, okay!” Enjolras’s heart jumped. “I know you’re fucking _scared_! But you didn’t have to… to…” He scrubbed a hand over his face.

“To what, Grantaire?” Enjolras flexed his shaking hand, laying it around the bottleneck. “Be such a moody, teenage _cunt_ about it?” He snapped his hand down. The bottle flung against the tile floor, breaking open with a mighty smash. Grantaire nearly jumped out of his skin as red wine flooded the tiles and splashed up over his boots. Enjolras’s heart was racing, lobbing against his chest so hard he felt he might break open too. Grantaire turned, and he vanished out the door.

Everything was spinning and tipping and flashing white at the edges of Enjolras’s eyes. The kitchen seemed hollow, fake like painted backdrops for a play, and it was blurring in and out of vision. The air was thin and his breaths were coming shallow and fast till he felt broad hands upon him.

“Enjolras…” Enjolras fell automatically against Combeferre’s chest, burying his head and trying to still the world and find oxygen. “I… Did you seriously tell Grantaire that he’s a worthless alcoholic?” Enjolras glanced up nervously, Combeferre’s face swimming above him. His expression was impossible to read.

“Not… Not in so many words?”, he whispered.

Combeferre opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came. Enjolras shrank further under his silver judgment. Combeferre had never looked at him like this, with disappointment so desperate and so resigned.

“‘ _Ferre_ …” The wounded whimper came from the doorway, fluttering down through the tension and breaking the two of them apart. As if yet another player was what this tragedy needed. Enjolras and Combeferre turned to find Courfeyrac standing, smaller than he’d ever been, across the lake of wine and glass. His cheeks shone with tears. Enjolras’s hand flew to his mouth.

Combeferre’s shoulders sagged and Enjolras shied away, cowering against the kitchen island. Coming tonight had been the worst decision he had made in a long time - and he had made some _bad_ decisions.

“‘Ferre…” Courfeyrac repeated, staring at the red sea creeping in lines up the tile grout like he might find his next words looking back at him. “ _I fucked up_ …” He tried to meet Combeferre’s eyes, but couldn’t make it past his chest without cringing and blushing in shame. “I tried to - I really tried, ‘Ferre, but I fucked up and… I don’t… I’m _so sorry_ …”

Instantly Combeferre brushed past Enjolras, stormed across the puddle of wine and wrapped his arms around Courfeyrac fearlessly. “I love you,” he assured him, and Courfeyrac let out a strangled sob. “Let me take you home. _Everything will be okay_.” Courfeyrac buried his face against Combeferre’s neck and nodded pitifully. Enjolras’s knees nearly gave out beneath him.

“Enjolras, I’ll find Cosette for you, alright? And I’ll talk to Feuilly. He’ll drive Grantaire and Gavrielle home. Jehan too I guess, since we were their ride… Shit. Alright. I’ll find them. It’ll be okay.” Combeferre spoke to no one in particular, taking control, spinning order out of the night’s chaos and Enjolras was torn between gratitude for his sturdiness and a desperation that Combeferre would look him in the eyes and tell him that he wasn’t furious, that he hadn’t fucked up - but he knew he had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you again in two weeks, on my MOTHERFUCKING BIRTHDAY!! Friday, May 20th! B) 
> 
> Don't forget to chat with me about the chapter, either here in the comments or at princetenjolras.tumblr.com! :D


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several sad sacks mope. Some of them reach productive conclusions. Others wallow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Pot. Like seriously. Pot. Also alcohol.

One’s car is a strange sort of twixt space, Combeferre thought to himself with his hands nervously tapping the wheel and his eyes studying the asphalt beneath his headlights. It is neither public enough for the security of watchful eyes nor private enough to be safe from them. Things not altogether advisable to do in a moving car on a crowded city road included changing clothes, applying makeup, most sex acts, and conversations of great consequence with your significant other. For this reason, the ride home had been silent.

At some point Courfeyrac had turned on the radio, and now they listened to hushed pop hits of the early 2000s underneath the sirens and cars and urban night sounds. His head was firmly turned towards his window, and though red-green flashing lights illuminated his curls and his chest and his handsome collarbones, he was turned too far for Combeferre to see whether his cheeks were still damp. That was probably the point.

Courfeyrac had ‘fucked up’. His crime, Combeferre still did not know, but considering he had spent half the party alone in the garden with Jehan, he could guess.

This was what Combeferre had wanted. But this was not what Combeferre had wanted.

His hand itched to nestle itself on Courfeyrac’s thigh, as it often did while driving, but he wasn’t sure that he’d be welcome right now. Which would cause his boyfriend more pain? To touch him? Or not to?

\--------------------------------------

The lock clicked shut and Grantaire staggered back against the door, collapsing hard against it. Jehan breezed past him, stepping out of their high heels and sighing as their weary, sore feet flattened against the varnished hardwood floor. Their apartment was dark except for the glowing of the kitchen.

“Want to fuck?” Grantaire rasped, staring at Jehan’s feet. “You could tie my wrists to the bedposts and smack me till my eyes are black.” Till he couldn’t see. Till he couldn’t think. Till he couldn’t remember.

“No thanks,” Jehan whispered, and Grantaire raised his head somberly. That was unusual. “I’d like this nonsense off though.” They lifted their arms above their head and their hands floated there airily, backlit with slivers of gold tracing their fingers. Grantaire stepped forward and unzipped them out of their corseted dress. He pulled it down to bundle at their ankles. The boning had left harsh scarlet stripes in their stomach, ribs, and the soft flesh of their back, and Grantaire ghosted his fingers sympathetically over the marks. Jehan dropped their arms.

For a long moment they stood in shadow, their hair and milk white shoulders outlined in the glimmering gold of the kitchen light, in only their silky gray panties and unlined bralette. It was Grantaire’s overwhelming instinct to embrace them; to wrap them in his arms and breathe in the scent dabbed behind their ears, to make a nest in them and rest his broken bones in their skin; but they did not want to be fucked, and Grantaire could not guarantee that they wanted to be smothered with touch either. The distance between their bodies made him sad.

“What a good idea,” he grunted grimly, and shrugged off his stupid, pretentious patched cardigan. He kicked away his boots into a corner of the foyer and dropped his trousers to the floor.

“Am I interrupting something?” A voice called saucily from the kitchen doorway.

Jehan shrieked.

“ _Holy fucking shit Éponine, you satanic banshee_ ,” Grantaire wheezed, doubled over and clutching his pounding chest. “ _Sweet merciful fuck…_ What the fuck are you doing in our apartment!”

Éponine leaned one hip against the doorway, waving a bottle in one hand and a turkey sandwich in the other. “Eating Jehan’s expensive deli meat. All I’ve had this week is rice, macaroni and cheetos. I even put lettuce on this thing, that’s how desperate I am for nutrition. How was the party?” She drawled the last word out with derision.

Grantaire and Jehan glanced at one another, brushing past eye contact, both of them wilting. “This evening would have been better spent fucking myself up the ass with a hot, rusty branding iron while termites bored into my face,” Grantaire replied, every word an effort.

“Jehan?”

“More or less,” Jehan affirmed.

“Jesus Christ on a fancy turkey sandwich,” Éponine commented blithely. “Am I a total bitch if that gives me just a little satisfaction?”

“Yes,” Jehan replied and stumbled forward into the living room, stepping over piles of books and around all their exotic lamps and decorations. They nearly knocked over a driftwood statuette of the Virgin Mary and a stack of tomes on medieval European literature topped with lavender candles before they finally collapsed onto the sofa. “Do you love me, Éponine?”

“Sure,” she replied, smirking and taking a bite from her sandwich.

“Then take off your shirt and come cuddle me. I need the comfort of your superb bosom.” They reached into the drawer of a side table, fishing out a box and a pipe in the shape of an elephant’s head. “Bring alcohol. Your pick. I can’t be arsed to make decisions anymore.”

“Shockingly, I’ve had boyfriends nicer than you are about ordering me to strip and present my breasts and a beer.” Even so, Éponine abandoned her t-shirt on the carpet with a chuckle, adjusted her comfy cotton sports bra and disappeared to procure booze from the kitchen while Grantaire trudged forth and followed Jehan’s path. He seated himself heavily on the other end of the couch and took Jehan’s delicate feet into his lap to knead into their arches with his thumbs.

“I was thinking about leaving France,” he mused aloud. “Come with me. Let’s go to Nepal. Or Thailand, maybe. Or Cameroon. Or Mars. I hear Mars is beautiful this time of year.”

Jehan glanced up from where they were busy packing the pipe. “Mars is good,” they hummed. “Saturn might be better. Farther away. Beautiful rings.”

“Saturn’s made of gas,” Grantaire sighed.

“Well pooh, so are you.”

Grantaire snorted. Éponine returned, the cradle of her arms excessively stuffed with cans and bottles. She arranged them on the coffee table and then kneed Jehan in the shoulder. “Scoot, pervert,” she chided affectionately, and Jehan adjusted so that she could slip in behind them. They leaned back and burrowed their head upon the pillow of her breasts with a satisfied hum of bliss. Éponine grinned and smoothed their hair away from their forehead. “So. Let’s hear it. Tell me everything.”

Grantaire and Jehan glanced at one another again. Grantaire reached for a bottle; Jehan flicked their lighter into life.

“ _Well_.”

\-------------------------

“Combeferre… I kissed them.”

Courfeyrac huddled on one end of the sofa. He cradled his knees to his chest, watched the headlights of passing cars slide along Combeferre’s papered walls as they cut through the chill darkness, and picked at the denim of his jeans. Combeferre watched Courfeyrac.

He had arranged himself carefully at the other end of the sofa in an attempt to allow Courfeyrac some cushion of space. The machinations of his boyfriend’s current panic were so shrouded from him, so indecipherable, and it had his stomach sinking to consider how terribly he may have misread his desires. What had he put Courfeyrac through?

“Sweetheart… I am _not_ angry, or upset, not even a little. I’m just terribly confused,” he reassured him gently, “This time last week we had them between us. I just don’t follow you, Courfeyrac. Why so much ado about a kiss?”

Courfeyrac rested his forehead on his knees. Combeferre caught a glimpse of his knit brows before his curls curtained forth to obscure his eyes. “That was negotiated. We discussed it, agreed to it together. And you said - you made it clear. _No promises beyond tonight_.” Courfeyrac’s voice was stumbling and hesitant as he lay the pieces in the air, trying to assemble them in a way that made sense.

“That wasn’t -” Combeferre stopped, and sighed. He had said that; it seemed the thing to say. It was his cards held close to his chest until the right moment, a moment which had never quite come, or which Combeferre had been too careful to seize. His cautious and hesitant nature had given Courfeyrac exactly the impression he hadn’t meant. “Yes. I thought… I thought we could discuss it afterwards. But you became so melancholy, it never felt like the right… time…”

“Discuss what?” Courfeyrac cut in. “Whether it… helped? Whether I was done? Satisfied? Fixed?”

“Fixed? _What_?” Combeferre balked. “Courfeyrac, I don’t… I don’t think we’re on the same page here, or even having the same conversation.” Combeferre scrubbed a hand across his face, adjusting his glasses. “Please be straightforward with me. We need to sort this out. How do you feel about Jehan?”

Courfeyrac fell silent. He lifted his head gently, staring across the room at the window, or the piano below it, or at nothing at all. Combeferre was patient, taking his breaths slowly, but the sight of his boyfriend’s dull faraway eyes and the curled, fetal shape of his body had his chest aching and his hands yearning to reach out and bring him close.

“I’m in love with them,” Courfeyrac whispered at last, his voice nearly cracking into silence.

\--------------------------------

“Love… is a butterfly in reverse,” Jehan exclaimed profoundly, examining the chipping on their mercury-silver nails.

Éponine snorted and spilled a stuttering cascade of smoke into their hair while trying not to set their head aflame with her lighter. “I’m ready,” she drawled. “Lay it on me. I’m listening. I’m ready for this.”

“It is the lovely larval form of grief,” Jehan continued, “which in the chrysalis of loss becomes something ugly and slow and hungry.” Their eyes shimmered and they nodded to their splayed fingers as though they were in the process of epiphany.

“Mm,” Grantaire hummed thoughtfully, and took a swig from a bottle.

“ _Every time_ , Grantaire,” Jehan declared. “Unless you kill it young. And even then, the ghosts of murdered love collect in your gut forever, and every time you start to fall again they flutter to remind of you what you must do.” Their words trailed off with Éponine’s clouds of breath. There was fervor in their voice, and certainty.

Grantaire squinted. “No ‘ffense Jehan, m’love, but is there a meaning somewhere buried in there? You are _very_ good at words, but not always _very_ good at communicating.”

“Well pooh, at least when I meander on in a manner both abstruse and purple, I keep it moderately brief. Unlike _some_ people.” Jehan made impatient grabby hands over their head and Éponine passed the pipe and the lighter back to them.

“Nah, I get it, I actually follow this one,” Éponine said while Jehan adjusted themself against her breasts and lit up. “It’s like… See… Love always… sucks. It’s bound to turn out awfully, that’s just the way of it. If it goes on long enough it ends badly. In grief, like they said.”

Grantaire settled his chin in his hands, nodding with rapture at her interpretation.

“Unless you like, you just don’t do it. Like me, you know? Fuck love. You don’t really need that drama and disappointment in your life. So you just abstain.”

“Why Éponine, I think that’s at _least_ a three dollar word,” Jehan commented brightly.

“Right, whatever. So, but then, you’re always like, meeting these people and falling in love and telling yourself to get over it… So every time you get butterflies in your stomach over someone new, you just gotta be like, I remember how this goes, and _fuck_ this.”

“That certainly is a philosophy,” Grantaire concluded.

“Éponine, wanna come with us to Saturn?” Jehan suggested smokily.

“We’re not going to Saturn,” Grantaire groaned with exasperation. “There’s nowhere to stand.”

“We are going to ride an asteroid around its rings,” Jehan counter-proposed, and Grantaire couldn’t find an argument against that. He swirled the liquid in his amber bottle, watching the contents shimmer and splash, and downed it.

He looked over at Jehan nestled against Éponine in a hazy cloud still illuminated only by the faraway kitchen glow. The shadow of her wild hair kept their faces in darkness except for the flickering of the lighter. They were soft together, their edges blurred against one another. Grantaire sank further down into the cushions of Jehan’s ancient sofa and smiled a grim and bitter smile.

“He was wearing leather pants tighter than a catholic virgin,” he recalled aloud.

Éponine snorted. “You always were an ass man. Scale of one to ten?”

Grantaire considered. In his mind’s eye he watched Enjolras slipping off the arm of the couch, away from Feuilly’s shoulder, and glide towards a dark hallway leaving a flood of disappointment in his wake. _You told me you liked the way I smelled when I came in from the yard. You asked me what they tasted like. But you don’t remember that anymore - how could you? You lit your first and extinguished your last and I never knew._

“Twelve,” Grantaire answered. “Absolutely delicious.”

“If Enjolras is a twelve,” Jehan responded, “Courfeyrac is at _least_ a sixteen.”

“Les Amis de l’ABC is a hall of monuments to the greatest asses we will never touch,” Grantaire stated solemnly and raised his bottle to the air. Jehan raised their pipe and clinked them together and they consumed their toast with hollow reverence and mourning. “To those goddamn _asses_. I’ll trade you, Jehan.” They exchanged vices and toasted again. “To those fucking asses, and the great sticks they conceal.”

Éponine smirked, reaching for a bottle and popping it open carefully so as not to upset Jehan’s comfort. These two miserable fellows were wallowing in the two saddest stories ever told about lost love, and she knew she ought to be a little more sympathetic. She did love them, and mourn for their broken hearts, but it frightened her that their happiness might have come at her expense. Jehan beloved by the boy she’d cuckolded, Grantaire by the one she’d abused, and in time they would know beyond certainty that they belonged with better people than Éponine Thenardier. How dismal. But as it was, they were rejected, and hers to keep for the time being.

\--------------------------------

The confession punctured the air like a knife. Combeferre felt the breath leave his body. He’d known it, he had, but to hear Courfeyrac say it - with such weight, with such sadness - this could have been so easy. And instead, they were here, and Courfeyrac was in so much pain.

Courfeyrac’s shoulders were drooping, his head was turning away again, and Combeferre was not sure what his boyfriend expected from him, but it was clear that it was nothing positive.

“And how do you feel about me, Courf?”

“I’m in love with you too,” Courfeyrac answered without missing a beat. “I’m in _love_ with you. That was _never_ a question. I just… I... I don’t know what to do… It hurts so much to love you both… I don’t know why I’m this way, I just -”

"Courf, can I ask why you thought I proposed bringing Jehan into our bed?”

Courfeyrac shifted uncomfortably. “To.. resolve tension? To give me a release. You wanted to help me. You were being so good to me, you’d obviously… noticed my attraction to Jehan. I’m sorry.”

Combeferre ran a hand through his hair incredulously. “And you obviously have not noticed _mine_!”

Courfeyrac’s eyes shot up to meet Combeferre’s. “Y-yours?”

Holy shit. Combeferre covered his face with his hands. Holy shit. Here, at last was the missing piece of the puzzle, and it was assembling into the most dismal picture of the last few months. Combeferre sighed heavily, searching for the words. Uncertainly he slipped his glasses from his face and cleaned their lenses against the hem of his shirt. Courfeyrac wobbled blurrily in front of him and Combeferre didn’t need 20/20 vision to know his hopeless expression.

“Courf, I suggested a threesome to test the waters for our potential… compatibility.” He replaced the glasses on the bridge of his nose. “I wanted us to date. All three of us. I really thought that we were on the same page about that. Apparently I was very much mistaken. Why would I give you a threesome with someone I _knew_ you were attracted to just to tell you you can’t have them? How cruel of me would that be!”

Courfeyrac looked flabbergasted. “Because - Because you thought I couldn’t control myself! And I mean, you were right... You were giving me a way to satisfy my fucked up polyamorous needs without _cheating_! And I did anyway -”

“Courf, I don’t think polyamory is fucked up! I have _never_ thought that, Courfeyrac! Two of our best friends are currently -”

“But _you’re_ not -”

“I didn’t think I was attracted to men either!” Combeferre cut him off a final time with exasperation. “But here I am. Loving you has never been an act of tolerance, Courf. It has always been _love_ , for all that you are. That massive, generous heart of so many affections included.”

Tears slipped down Courfeyrac’s face.

“I wish you’d just _asked_ ,” Combeferre said more quietly. “But it isn’t your fault. You offered me the gift of your monogamy and it clearly meant so much to you. I never wanted to devalue that by telling you that that wasn’t something I needed.”

“So… So you want…” Courfeyrac whimpered incoherently, his damp eyes wandering nervously around the floor.

“If you also want this, and they want this, then I want for you, Jehan and myself to be together. The three of us, together. A… what’s the word? Polyamorous triad? Do you understand?” Combeferre scooted closer to Courfeyrac, gently extending his hand, reaching for Courfeyrac’s knee.

Courfeyrac clasped it under his own trembling fingers and pressed it to the top of his thigh. “Yes,” he whispered, making skittish eye contact with Combeferre again at last. “I _really_ want that. _Christo_ , Combeferre, I love you so much, I can’t believe you really want this too…” Courfeyrac fell aggressively forward into Combeferre’s chest, throwing his arms around his waist and clinging desperately.

Combeferre huffed as the breath was knocked out of him. He wrapped his arms around Combeferre’s back more tightly than he ever had, clutching the man to his body with feverish need.

“I love you.” Combeferre pressed the words into Courfeyrac’s raven curls. “And it has been a long, long time since I doubted that you loved me too.”

\-------------------------

“I’ve often heard stories of kind, gentle Samaritans ushering lost little wild things into their keep, believing they have found something no more exotic than a stray cat or a mangy dog. Something feral in whom domesticity lays dormant, from whom sweetness can be coaxed with love and tender care. Until their little beast grows bigger and wilder and meaner than any dog nor alley cat, and they realize they have been playing nursemaid to a bear, or a cougar, or some other thing who has grown teeth long enough to puncture their skull. And you wonder whether those people had ever seen a real dog in their life, and you laugh at their foolishness.”

“I’ve never laughed at such a thing. I always thought those stories were sweet.”

“Sweet to the observer, maybe. Much more sour when you’re a character in such a story. When you’re the fool who loved a wild animal and hoped that he could love you back, right up until he mauled you.”

“I’d argue that you provoked him - and I don’t deny that you did, I told you to stay home and be gentle with your hangover, you prick - but I won’t pass the proverbial buck either. Enjolras can be sweet as a kitten, I’ve known him to be, when he’s among his own clutch. All laughter and light. He has no sweetness for outsiders though. It’s funny, really, the way he speaks so beautifully about uplifting the world and all citizenry, when really he hasn’t got much of a taste for individual citizens. Ha. He can certainly be… terrible.”

Grantaire passed the pipe along and replaced it in his palm with a bottle. The table was more empty vessels now than full ones, and he wasn’t sure when any of them had gotten emptied. The night was a fumey haze, and it seemed a permanent state - nighttime, darkness, the still earth, the buzzing kitchen glow, bowls and bottles. He wouldn’t dare look at a clock lest he broke the spell.

Jehan and Grantaire had grown verbose, and Éponine had grown soft. Her doe eyes were unfocused, absently watching the dim light play against Jehan’s hair. Grantaire had seen her rest her cheek against them for a while with a sleepy comfort he rarely saw in her body. He wished he saw her at peace more often. It never came without intoxication.

“He said he wasn’t ready,” Grantaire announced quietly.

“Ready for what?” Jehan replied.

The pipe returned to Grantaire. With lungs full of bitter smoke and a head choked of oxygen and floating untethered, Grantaire considered and sighed a foggy sigh. His body felt scattered across the room, so much vast and hollow space between each piece, no spine to tie him down and keep him whole. “For me. For the truth of the fuckup that I am. Unequipped for his skull-breaking teeth. Unworthy of his violence. He didn’t want to know… He would so much rather I be a dim memory, growing dimmer, of a boy he could believe was deserving.”

“People like to think of memories as photographs catalogued in our brains,” Jehan said softly to his bottle. “In time they fade and grow dim like old film, but the shapes are still there, the lines left by light carved into paper in unchanging shapes. They like to think they can crack them out of their heads and review their details like a dusty album. But it isn’t so.”

“If a memory is not a photograph, beloved Jehan, tell me what a memory is.” Grantaire fumbled with the lighter.

“A memory is a traveller. He first enters us not through the mind but through the porous membrane of our hearts, and is colored even in his genesis by the state he finds that bloody organ in. For every step our body takes, he takes a step along our body, and travels miles along our veins. Some memories come to rest in our ribs, and others clog our throats - still others tangle themselves in the cords of our wrists. I’ve many a memory in the acid of my stomach.”

Grantaire waited to hear Jehan find their point, though he was beginning already to forget the beginning of this story.

“As a traveller is, from the moment he sets out, he is changed by his journey - that is to say, our journey - and he is never the same in the moment of his present as he was when he set out, or as he will be when he ends. Memories are travellers, they live and breathe, they grow, they change. The Grantaire that Enjolras remembers is not the one he met however many years ago - and consider, Grantaire, that the Enjolras you recall is not the one you knew.”

“That’s not very insightful at this point, Jehan. Clearly we deified each other. It’s not new information, or comforting.”

“All I’m _saying_ is, perhaps instead of trying to build a relationship from the rubble of what never was, both of you stubborn fucks ought to try to start something _new_.”

“It is a little late for that,” Grantaire huffed in exhausted irritation.

“Hey,” Éponine interrupted, speaking up for the first time in a while. “Guess what.”

Grantaire and Jehan turned to her, a little surprised that she was even still awake.

“What?”

“Our Valentine’s dance show is next weekend. Dance away from your problems.”

Grantaire looked pointedly at Jehan. “Observe, my dear. Now _that_ is an insightful solution.”

\-------------------

If the Fauchelevent home was modest for their means, the bedroom of M. Fauchelevent was downright priestly. To his son and daughter he had given the most spacious rooms, and to himself, hardly more than a closet. One window gave him a view of the branches of a cherry tree , and the other of sunsets beyond the garden wall, the light broken by the tall silhouette of the nearby church’s steeple. His furniture was limited to a great, ageing wardrobe, a desk and a hard wooden chair to sit at, and an iron framed bed. If the inhabitant could be accused of decorative excess it was only in one thing: The western wall was heavily papered, rivalling even Cosette’s, and at first glance the contents seemed to lack thematic coherence; but when examined, the subject was clear. The wall was covered in Cosette and Enjolras. The drawings and school projects of earlier childhood, all the certificates and high marks of academic accomplishments, photographs as casual as afternoon strolls and as monumental as their graduation. Here and there were square holes where photographs of Enjolras had been taken down and stored away in boxes. Other places were marked by scattered yellow post-its, covering his face or his buried name.

The boy himself lay limp against his father’s pillows in a halo of golden hair and a shroud of bedsheets. He was breathing slowly now, ribs falling and rising in steady rhythm, and the linen beneath his burning face was drying. Every now and then he gave a pitiful hiccup, or took a tissue from the nightstand to clean his clogged nose and eyes. Enjolras had emptied himself out into his father’s bed, leaving it dirty with sweat and tears and mucus and anguish, and all the while Cosette had sat by his side and stroked his back as he poured out. At long last he had grown still and quiet.

She raised a glass from the nightstand. “Drink again,” she murmured, and Enjolras complied, propping himself just enough to gulp some water down. When he finished he sniffled and lay his head back down, surrendering the glass to Cosette. “Good,” she said, and ran her fingers over his hair.

Combeferre had taken Courfeyrac. Feuilly had taken Gav, Grantaire and Jehan. Bahorel had taken over, and to Cosette’s relief and curiosity, that newcomer called Musichetta had stepped up as well - between the two of them they had kept the party going long enough that Courfeyrac’s name as a host would not be tarnished, and then packaged people up and shipped them on their way. Musichetta had even volunteered to chauffeur Bahorel, Joly, Bossuet, _and_ Marius home. Cosette was mentally planning a gift basket for this new friend and veritable saint who had risen above and beyond the call of duty for a crew not yet her own so that all the wounded could be looked after.

Enjolras hic-sniffled again, and Cosette handed him a tissue. It was added to the growing pile at the side of their father’s bed.

“I think Combeferre hates me,” came his quiet, watery warble at last, followed by another hic-sniffle.

“I think Combeferre loves you,” Cosette countered gently, “and loves you too much to let you make yourself and his friends so unhappy.” Enjolras whimpered.

“I… He… _Grantaire_ …”

“I told you to talk to him, to leave behind the past and find out who he is. I told him the same of you. Both of you idiots failed me. I still love you both, but it is time for this mess to end.” She was firm, and Enjolras could feel the pulse of her resolution along the wavelength of their twin minds. If Cosette said that it was time for it to end, she would not be ignored a second time.

“What am I... supposed to do?”

“You could _start_ with an apology, and a retraction of the _shitty_ things you apparently told that poor boy.” She softened the harshness of her demands with more light strokes of her hands over his hair and his shoulders. “It wasn’t acceptable of Grantaire to come to your meeting drunk, or to punish you by drinking after your argument, but it’s not acceptable to punish _him_ for something that is very likely out of his control. You accuse him of being an alcoholic as though that’s a slur of his character and not a demon I’m sure he’d rather be free of, if it’s true. If you expect him to be accommodating of your illnesses, you ought to be as gentle with his.”

Hic-sniffle. Enjolras nodded, tangles of hair sticking to his damp face. “Why am I like this,” he whispered. “I was so _mean_. And that girl, and just… _people_ … Why am I so fucking _aggro_ all the time, Cosette…”

“You know we aren’t any different, Enjolras. We spent almost twelve years of our lives seeing every other person as an enemy. My defense was to play the fragile, lovable baby bird all my life. Yours was to play the tiger.” Cosette shrugged like it was obvious. Like it was natural. It had been.

From somewhere down below the bed where Enjolras’s bag had been dumped after medicine had been retrieved, a muffled vibration sounded. In the time it took for Enjolras and Cosette to stir, it was followed by another.

Enjolras collapsed back against the pillow. “Please,” he whimpered, and Cosette understood. She leaned over her brother’s body, hung halfway off the bed and fished it out.

“ _Shit_ ,” she whispered. “ _Shit, fuck, tits_.”

Enjolras groaned. “Is it…?”

“Yeah,” she sighed heavily. “Crowning jewel of tonight. Do you want me to read it to you?”

“How bad is it? Scale of one to ten?”

“For him or just in general?”

“Just read it. First, chain me down so I don’t throw myself out the fucking window.”  

 **[From: _(unknown number)_** **23:42]**  
>> _I miss you. It’s been awhile since I’ve been around to check on you. - C_

>> _I wouldn’t have to, you know, if you’d just answer now and again. Let me know how you’re doing. Be good,_ ma jolie ange _. - C_

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Well pooh, at least when I meander on in a manner both abstruse and purple, I keep it moderately brief. Unlike some people.” Wow Jehan. @ me next time. 
> 
> HEY IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!! B) HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME...!
> 
> The next chapter will be published on Friday, May 27th - yes, exactly ONE WEEK from now! This is because it's a fairly short chapter, and because the following one will take me a little longer to produce.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire and Eponine dance their problems away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT: This is the song that Grantaire and Eponine dance to!  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HMoyCyLnN8
> 
> Okay, warnings: Enjolras is basically having a lowkey anxiety attack for 80% of this chapter. Also, implied past assault. 
> 
> This chapter is kind of short - in the original outlines it went back and forth between being tacked on the end of the last chapter and the beginning of the next one, but ultimately giving it its own space made the most narrative sense. Enjoy!

_If the sky that we look upon_

_Should tumble and fall_

_Or the mountains should crumble into the sea_

_I won’t cry, I won’t cry, no I won’t shed a tear_

_Just as long as you stand by me_

It had been a gorgeous cover the first time that he heard it, a dark and dramatic retelling of the sweet promise, but it was numb to him now as latin liturgy. The lyrics might as well have been  _and one and two and three and ronde de jambe and five and six and seven and lift_  and little else. With his palms gripping Éponine’s ribs he felt her power surge through him to the balls of his feet on the polished floor - he held her lungs between his hands and felt them swell. They’d swelled in the same rush every one of the thousand times they’d practiced this lift, as though every time she expected him to let her fall.  _And one and two and three_  and he lowered her with grace - and his phone buzzed. She hit the floor with a clumsy stumble. “Motherfucker,” she cursed, arms splayed like wings to find her balance.

“Shit, sorry! Shit! That’d better be Jehan -”

“Yeah, well, Jehan can pay my fucking hospital bills when you sprain my fucking ankle, jerk.”

Grantaire skittered across the floor to where his dance bag was stowed in a heap in the corner. His knees hit the glossy wood, bare through the tears in his sweats, and he dug anxiously through his bag while his phone continued to buzz.

“Jehan!” He gripped it to his ear while Éponine crossed her arms, popped a hip akimbo and faux-glared behind him - it was a silly show. She was just as eager as he was.

“ _R_.”

“Are you dead! Are you going through with your plans to exile yourself to the alps, where you will spend your days as a hermit goatherd, loved only by your flock and your loyal sheepdogs?”

“ _Grantaire_ …”

“Are you okay?”

“ _Grantaire_.” Jehan’s voice on the other end of the line was quivering. Grantaire raised quickly to his feet, mentally rechecking the rescue routes they’d planned together the moment that Combeferre and Courfeyrac had invited Jehan out to dinner. Bahorel and his truck were a speed dial away, late hour or no.

“Were they angry? Are you okay?” Grantaire pleaded softly.

“ _They want to date me_.”

Static passed between them. The soft rushing sounds of traffic could be heard from the other end. “They…”

“ _Both of them. They want to date me, Grantaire. Together. All of us. The three of us_.”

“I… Oh...  Well, shit! That’s!”

Éponine tapped her foot impatiently. Grantaire swivelled around and threw a hand up in a befuddled one-armed shrug.

“ _Grantaire, you know how I’ve always said I believe in miracle_ s?”

“Yeah?”

“ _Secretly, in my heart of hearts_ ,  _I was lying. I_ wanted _to but I didn’t - until right fucking now. I have to go though, they’re waiting. I love you, I won’t be home tonight, I’ll talk to you soon, bye_ -” and with that, the line clicked dead.

Grantaire lowered the phone slowly, staring at the blinking numbers until they disappeared to be replaced by his lockscreen.

“Well?” Éponine demanded. “Are they okay or am I murdering someone tonight?”

“They have… boyfriends. Plural.”

Éponine stared, her fierce expression unchanging for a long moment until it softened into something empty and unreadable. “Oh.”

“Seems a little obvious now, huh.”

Éponine’s mouth tightened. “Come on. Let’s take it from your ronde de jambe and do that lift again. This time, don’t you fucking drop me.” She pivoted and padded away.

Grantaire looked between her and his phone, numbness spreading from the tips of his fingers into the hollows of his wrists. He glanced around the empty studio, dead in this late hour, Éponine standing small under the great windows exposed to blackness. Filling the emptiness with his breath, he discarded his phone and strolled out to meet her.

 

\-----------------------------

 

Enjolras clutched the skinny cinnamon dolce latte in his palms, letting the warmth singe his numb, frozen hands. February had teased an early thaw only to throw the blanket of winter back over Paris. Even inside Jehan’s  _toasty_  favorite coffee house, Enjolras dared not abandon his scarlet scarf or wool cardigan.

Jehan returned from the counter with a peppermint tea. They dropped into the plush armchair opposite Enjolras and tucked their feet up underneath them without spilling a drop. After taking a moment to adjust their glasses and smooth their hair, they gave him their bright-eyed attention. “So? Why are we here?” The question was offered with perk and sunshine, but there were tense wires in the air between the two of them. An unspoken line in the dirt between two factions, at which two ambassadors meet to arrange amends.

“How are you?” Enjolras deflected. “Reports are flying along the grapevine. No one tells me anything, you know, they figure I’m not interested in romantic nonsense. And people are being especially delicate with me currently anyhow. But, nonetheless I have heard interesting things about you.”

Jehan smiled, but it came with a sigh. “I’m over the moon, honestly, though still in some disbelief. The alignment of our stars sneaks up on us sometimes. I’ve heard some things about you as well, of course. Nobody means to keep you in the dark, but Courfeyrac’s a bit of  tender mess at present, and Combeferre isn’t… sure what you need.”

“No need to sugarcoat it, Jehan, he’s pissed at me. For good reason.”

Jehan shrugged uneasily. “...Oh? I wouldn’t say pissed. I think that implies conviction.”

“Has he spoken about it with you?”

“Of course we’ve spoken about it. We both want to do right by the people we love. But the way remains cloudy.”

Enjolras nodded. “I find myself feeling the same. That’s… why I called you up. Um. I regret the way that I have been. I won’t absolve Grantaire of  _all_  blame, but I must hold myself accountable as well, and…”

“If it means anything to you, Grantaire feels similarly.”

Enjolras nodded again, more fervently, careful not to splatter his cooling coffee. “We should talk, shouldn’t we? Or would he rather I… I don’t know how it’s possible for us to avoid one another forever. We share the same friends. So we should… We need to talk. Right?”

“Absolutely.”

“What do I do, Jehan? A text would be callous! A call, he’d probably ignore… And my  _god_ , I wouldn’t want to do this sort of thing over the phone anyway… I need to see him in person. But I don’t want to just show up at your place, I was furious at him for invading my safe space without warning, how hypocritical of me would it be to do the same to him? What do I  _do_? 

Jehan took a long sip of their tea, contemplating the dilemma. After a moment, they set their drink down on the little table that divided them and dug through their bag. They produced a glossy flyer smattered with photoshopped roses and handed it to Enjolras. “He’s only in one, but most of the group is going. You should come… I think it would be meaningful to him, and perhaps give you some things to think about. In any case, approaching him afterwards with a bouquet in your arms can’t go badly.”

 

\------------------------------

 

“ _Studio Auclaire presents:_ ** _Strange Love_** _, a Valentine’s Recital_ ”.

The program was pale gray with austere black type. The title was embarrassingly pink. It was probably meant to be elegant but seemed flimsy and plain, and the texture was less than pleasant. It squeaked under Enjolras’s fingers as he tore a neat row along the edge, each fissure a centimeter in length. He’d finished these ragged borders on the first two pages before the lights had even dimmed. Now, four numbers in, he had almost reached the final corner of the final page and dreaded what he might do when it finished and his hands were empty. The skin of his arms tingled at the thought.

In the dark, Courfeyrac on his left and Joly on his right could not see the clammy white of his face or feel the drumming of his heart - though they might, perhaps, smell his nervous sweat as it soaked through his undershirt. Their programs lay flat in their laps, unmarred, and Enjolras could not imagine how they were content to keep their hands still. They stared with blissful interest at the stage. Six young girls between the ages of eight and twelve fluttered through the light with postures too precise to look natural on their undeveloped bodies - though Enjolras wasn’t sure the bend of that blonde’s leg as she threw it gracefully fly-ward would look natural on anyone. Unable to focus on their lyrical dance, Enjolras looked down the line of his friends and observed them instead, noting Combeferre’s rapt attention and Jehan’s awe and Bahorel’s delight. They were all enjoying this. How were they all enjoying this? How could he be the only one whose insides were gripped by thorns? The young girls disappeared in a stormcloud of applause and were replaced by a trio of teens. Enjolras reached the end of his program’s edges and with a sigh let it slide to his feet and land somewhere on the sticky ground near his bag. Impulsively he reached for his phone but withdrew his hand, knowing how rude it would be to fiddle with _that_ device.

Something rubbery dropped into his lap. Enjolras startled.

“Do you need that?” Courfeyrac whispered into his ear.

Enjolras examined the object with his palms, a tangled twist of rubber that clicked satisfyingly and silently in his hands as he wound it.

“Thank you,” he whispered back, glowing with gratitude.

Courfeyrac nodded, grinning. He opened his mouth as though to explain, but his eyes darted to the stage and back to Enjolras and he shrugged. “Figured you would,” he supplied instead, and turned his attention back to the dancers.

Enjolras gripped the toy and twisted it, absorbing the gentle clicks and trying to unwind himself.

Grantaire was here. Somewhere in this building. In the wings, in the green room, in the dressing room artfully applying glitter to himself or someone else. His performance - “ _Stand by Me, choreographed by Éponine Thenardier, performed by Dmitry Grantaire and Éponine Thenardier_ ” - was third to last of the twenty or so numbers, and Enjolras wasn’t sure whether it would be worse if he had been sooner. He gave the toy a rough twist and it popped apart. Enjolras carefully fitted the pieces back together and continued.

 _I’m sorry_ , he rehearsed in his mind.  _I said terrible things to you. I was unsympathetic and unkind and I let fear make a monster of me. I’m sorry. I’d like to speak with you, and maybe we can sort this out._ The tension bled out of his hands through the coil of rubber and plastic, but his heart was a vast well of anxiety, producing tension to replace it at an unmatchable rate.  _I’m sorry. I said terrible things to you. I was unsympathetic and unkind and…_

The show crawled on at a snail’s pace. The theme was love, naturally enough for a Valentine’s recital, but with a slight twist. Forbidden love and taboo lovers, hungry desire and metaphors of cannibalism, unhealthy romances, love of twisted people, love by monsters. The numbers by younger children were saccharine as could be expected - those by the teen and adult classes were racier, more thoughtful and provocative. There was at least one number about love between a pair of women and Enjolras wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or irritated by its inclusion, the theme considered. He thought to bring it up with Cosette later as a discussion topic. Enjolras contemplated  _Stand by Me_  and wondered where the strange love twist was in that upbeat classic.

As the lines between the current title and Grantaire’s piece dwindled, Enjolras only grew more restless, and the sharp wire around his stomach pulled tighter. At moments he could feel his heartbeat painfully from his chest radiating all the way to his legs, anxiety pounding with every breath. Sometimes he could focus on the dancing just long enough to let it subside, only to feel it collapse back in upon him as soon as the music quieted.

What if Grantaire refused him? Scoffed at him? Turned him angrily away? Or worse - visceral flashes of clawing hands and swinging fists sparked in the darkness before his eyes. Ghost memories of terror ran cold through his blood, picking up his heart rate again. Shame drained the heat from his face and had his stomach clenched so hard it quivered. He had to believe that Grantaire would not do that - but he had believed that of people before, and he had been wrong. And most of all, he had believed much of Grantaire, and he had been wrong. Or simply… blind for unwillingness to see.

The lights fell dim on the final chords of a piece called  _Vampire Smile_  and transitioned into the predictable inclusion of  _Tainted Love_  as performed by five to eight year olds. Only this song now stood between himself and Grantaire. The toy had fallen still in Enjolras’s lap and he gripped his forearms instead, nails digging deep into his flesh where he knew he’d find crescent bruises in the morning. His heart beat wildly in his chest, lobbing uncomfortably and shaking the acid in his guts till it threatened to spill up his dry throat. The lights before him were blurring and shivering and he could barely make out the prancing children.

It took him a moment to notice the hand that had slipped across the armrest and laid itself gently against his bicep, but when he did, he pried his trembling arms apart and took Courfeyrac’s hand in his. The man gripped it reassuringly and Enjolras was grateful, but it was not enough; could not even scratch the surface. Jesus _Christ_ , how long could these first graders dance? They carried on blissfully unaware that an audience member was in the middle of a hellish extended anxiety attack.

When the music stopped, Enjolras’s heart stopped with it. The lights went dim and bright pinpricks popped in the darkness. Somewhere in a dusty corner of his mind Enjolras knew that Courfeyrac must be in pain from the way he gripped his hand, but neither of them made a sound or pulled away. Silence ached in Enjolras’s ears and it stretched the long distance between the wings, sinking with crushing weight upon him.

One dim spotlight glimmered into place. Enjolras gasped and jolted. It illuminated nothing, only floorboards, but beyond it a figure of shadow stood unmoving. A series of dark and haunting piano notes echoed through the theater and the dawning of a soft red light revealed Éponine drooped and broken in Grantaire’s embrace. Enjolras could no longer feel his fingers.

Grantaire’s distant face was smeared with black grease across his eyes from cheekbone to fine cheekbone; peering out from this mask, his eyes were stars in the dark. When a voice cried out over the music it was with longing and pain, and Enjolras sensed that this was not the  _Stand by Me_  he knew.

Éponine moved slowly with Grantaire, blended as one, pressed together as intimately as lovers. Her face was adorned with the same makeup as his and it reflected the nearness of the empty spotlight. Her eyes never left it as she moved, fixed on the light. Grantaire’s arms - powerful, bare arms, thick as young trees, marked with black ink - cradled her, and with every movement she made they wound around her to keep her in his grasp.

The floor beneath Enjolras was long gone, and the chair that held him. He seemed to float untethered and unfeeling in an empty auditorium where Grantaire and Éponine moved smoothly to the low pulse of drums in impossible synchrony. Every step seemed made with great effort, tension restricting power, keeping the air tight with suspense and thrill. As the music swelled their bodies parted though they still seemed wired together, and every move Éponine made brought her closer to that ascending light, and every move of Grantaire’s kept her close and held her back. They played out the intimate struggle of a devouring lover and a caged beloved held in the choking darkness.

The driving drumbeat and electric chords screamed out with heightening drama and Éponine’s desperation grew. She threw herself in a gorgeous leap and Grantaire caught her around her middle, yanking her back, folding her near in half in the process. Enjolras’s heart lobbed in his throat and he squirmed in his seat. He lifted her high above his head, massive hands gripping her sides tight, and she arched against the light throwing elegant shadows to the ground.

The music began a sloping decrescendo and with it the two dancers relaxed into one another as though in exhaustion. Éponine, for all her strength, seemed small and fragile against Grantaire. She gave her tender submission to him with delicate movements still clutched against his body. Her eyes still dwelled on the light beyond her reach as the music faded and darkness settled over them till they were black shapes in a black gloom and the spotlight diminished into nothing.

Applause erupted with a frightening clamor. Enjolras startled and flinched at the thunderous sound. Courfeyrac tore his hand away at last to join in enthusiastically, and Enjolras settled his numb hands in his lap over the forgotten toy, concentrating on even breaths. Making a snap decision before the din could settle he stood shakily to his feet, slipping past Courfeyrac’s knees and down the row of audience members, his eyes on a side door marked exit.

Bolting through the door into the grand, empty lobby felt like breaking through the grip of the dark sea into bright, open air. His lungs heaved the same way, gasping in oxygen that seemed crisper, cleaner and more potent than it had inside the theater. Wandering on quivering legs to a ledge beside a tall window that looked out into the night, Enjolras felt all the electric nerves in his body begin to simmer calm at last. He collapsed upon the ledge and the chilled window felt like bliss against his back.

He had never seen them dance before. Not  _really_. He’d seen Éponine with her earbuds in, practicing steps in silence on the lawn. He’d seen Grantaire do simple exercises in the attic. But though he knew that they were, in theory,  _dancers_ , he had never known that they were… Well,  _good_. He wondered if it was trained skill or organic intimacy that had strung their movements together with such precision, that had held them together on stage with such compelling chemistry. Did he love her? The question, ridiculous as it seemed, floated through his consciousness unbidden. He pictured the tight curl of her biceps as she danced and heard the crack of her palm against his sister’s cheek. Had Grantaire forgotten? Forgiven what was never his to forgive? Anger bubbled in him anew and it was all he could do to quell it. _I’m sorry. I said terrible things to you. I was unsympathetic and unkind..._

“Enjolras?”

Enjolras looked up in a slight panic. Courfeyrac was easing the auditorium door closed behind himself.

“Hey,” he responded wearily, like he could fake being fine.

Courfeyrac strode over and set himself carefully down on the ledge beside him. He was quiet, allowing the moment to breathe. When they had settled together Courfeyrac reached into his pocket and produced an orange pill bottle, presumably fished out of Enjolras’s bag. “You need this?”

Enjolras shook his head. “No. I’m fine. Those will put me to sleep anyway, that’s the last thing I need right now.”

Courfeyrac nodded. “Wanna talk?”

Enjolras shrugged. He bent over, laying his head down on the tops of his knees and wrapping fingers around his ankles. His thumbs rubbed light circles into the thin skin behind the bone. “What if he hates me? What if I hate him?”

At first, there was no reply. Courfeyrac studied the floor with arms folded and brows knit. “Well, then that’s the way it is, I guess,” he answered. “Sometimes these things don’t work. It happens. But…”

Enjolras hung on the trailing edge of his sentence. “But?”

Courfeyrac huffed uncertainly. “Combeferre told me something after this semester’s first meeting, the one you… left. I ran after you almost right away. He stayed, kept things under control, and spoke to Grantaire. And he told me that Grantaire said… Well, there was context and all. But anyway, Grantaire said… He said that he’d  _kill_  for you. Did you know that?”

Enjolras’s head snapped up. He shook it no.

“And you know, Enjolras, that’s just shit people say, of course. I’m torn between resting in the certainty that that’s never something any one of us would have to do and hoping that it might be. That this little group of ours could be something for the history books, you know? We could be bigger than we are, than this little campus group, and if it ever came to that… But that’s whatever. Point is, Enj, Grantaire was serious about you. I won’t defend how he went about showing you affection, but… He won’t hate you. He couldn’t possibly. Not after saying a thing like that.”

Enjolras shook his head. “That was  _before_. He hadn’t seen me since I was eleven. The child he’d kill for is gone.”

“And look who stands in his place,” Courfeyrac urged.

Enjolras met his eyes. Courfeyrac continued. “I don’t know what kind of kid you were. But would you seriously claim to me that you’re  _less_  worthy of that kind of love now than you were then? If Grantaire felt that way before, imagine what he could feel now, if you let him get to know you again. And he wants to.”

Enjolras felt heat pour into his cheeks and threaten to spill through his eyes. He brushed the back of his wrist across his face, biting down on his tongue.

“And what about you? Would hating him be easier?”

“No,” Enjolras whispered. “I just… want to believe that he really meant the things he said…”

“Which things?”

“That he believes in me.  That I can uncorrupt the world. That he believes that people are born good, and that people can become good again.”

“Do you believe that?”

Enjolras stared at his knees, biting down on the tip of his tongue again until it stung. When he parted his lips to speak, he wasn’t sure what would come out.

But the doors broke open and the crowd spilled out into the lobby, and he never got the chance to know.

“That was _amazing_ , he was so  _amazing_ , weren’t they  _beautiful_?” Through the bustling masses of people rushing out of the theater, Enjolras caught sight of Jehan hanging on Combeferre’s arm and chattering away, blushing and enamored. Joly’s hands were flying and Bossuet was translating as quickly as he could speak and Combeferre nodded adamantly at his enthusiastic praise. Courfeyrac stood and waved them over, grinning.

“That was _so good_!” Jehan rushed into Courfeyrac’s arms, hands splayed over his chest, and for a moment their babbling ceased as they met Courfeyrac’s eyes with a tender sunbeam smile. Their eyes lingered softly together and Enjolras looked away, feeling as though he was trespassing on something intimate.

A hand brushed his shoulder. “How are you?” Combeferre towered over him with a concerned frown.

Enjolras shrugged. “Stable-ish.”

“What are you going to say to him?”

 _I’m sorry. I said terrible things to you. I was unsympathetic and unkind. I let fear make a monster of me, and I’m sorry._ “I’m going to apologize,” he said quietly, and tried to look Combeferre in the eye. Failing that, his gaze settled somewhere on the man’s broad chest and the nice sage waistcoat he’d worn for the event.

“I’m proud of you,” Combeferre replied, placing a hand featherlight on Enjolras’s arm.

“Can you forgive me for the things I said?” Enjolras stammered out.

Combeferre looked taken aback. “Of course not,” he replied, and Enjolras felt his stomach drop into nothing. “That’s Grantaire’s to forgive, not mine,” he clarified. “Enjolras, I’m sorry that I had to go that night. So much was happening at once, and I trusted Cosette to look after you while I looked after Courfeyrac. We never really did get to speak after that, did we?” Enjolras shook his head. “I know you wouldn’t have me lie to spare your feelings; I was disappointed in you, of course I was. I know you’re capable of better. But I am your man, always am and always have been, and I remain behind you even when you are… lost.”

“I need you as my guide,” Enjolras said softly.

Combeferre hummed, smiling. “And I need you as my brave and blazing leader. For whatever I can be, you have me.”

“They’re here,” Courfeyrac broke in, tapping Combeferre on the shoulder and orienting him around.

The dancers were coming out, small children in tights rushing into the arms of doting parents, teenagers being swallowed up by groups of their friends, bouquets being thrust about - and there was Éponine, her face still smeared with black makeup, and Grantaire trailing behind with a dizzy grin.

Jehan barrelled forth first. They launched into Grantaire’s sturdy arms and then against Éponine, pecking both their faces with a dozen kisses and gushing about their stupendous performance. Joly and Bossuet dragged Grantaire to the side offering him their own flowers, and Combeferre left Enjolras behind to embrace Éponine and exchange an affectionate gaze with her.

Éponine caught sight of Enjolras first, standing alone against the window. Her chest swelled with breath and she tensed, giving another glance to Combeferre, who subtly slid himself between them and murmured something quiet to her which evidently put her at no ease whatsoever.

Anxious sickness twisted in Enjolras’s stomach. He’d put it in a box to store for later, the sight of Éponine’s eyes on him, and Combeferre’s hands on her. He tore his eyes away and sought out his real aim.

Grantaire was already staring back at him through the crowd. Over Jehan’s shoulder, past Joly’s head, his sharp, dark eyes were stark against his greasepaint makeup and they drilled holes into his skin. Enjolras inhaled sharply.

Slowly, feigning organic restlessness, their friends turned their heads away and parted their bodies. The way between them was clear, and their moment was private - as private as they could be in such a crowd. Enjolras wrought his hands together nervously, nails scraping against his skin.

Grantaire swayed forward. Each step seemed like a decision. Enjolras pressed his clasped hands into his stomach like he could physically hold down the anxious beast inside. Grantaire drew nearer, eyes like glass and face like stone, black and unreadable, till he was standing before Enjolras close enough to reach out and touch him. Enjolras breathed in his heavy, musky air with stuttering lungs.

“Why… are you here?” Grantaire asked. The bewildered question was empty of judgment but stained with his fear.

Enjolras opened his dry mouth and closed it. Grantaire shifted uncomfortably. Enjolras tried again.

“I… I fucked up, Grantaire.”

Grantaire’s eyes widened.

“I’m so, so sorry, I don’t… I fucked up. I was so scared. I fucked up and I take it all back and this is not what I planned to say…” A hand flew to his mouth, clamping tight over it.

For time that stretched from heartbeats to long, aching days, Grantaire was silent. Enjolras watched the lobby lights glimmer in his eyes, green and brown and gold and green again, those dark oak tones even seeming to edge on rich plum, and he waited for some sign that Grantaire would not reach out those broad leather hands and strangle him here and now.

“I’m sorry too,” his reply came at last, almost imperceptible under the noise around them. “I regret everything.”

“Come home with me?” Enjolras blurted. Grantaire nearly choked on his sharp inhale. “To talk, to… Or yours, you know…  _Whatever_. I’m usually better at speaking than this, I swear,” he rushed.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Grantaire squeaked. “Yes, yeah, either,” he said with a cough and an attempt at a normal register. He glanced over his shoulder and intercepted Éponine’s stare.

For a moment, he held it, and then turned back to Enjolras. “Yeah,” he said a final time. “Let’s talk.”

 

  
  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALRIGHT YEAAHHH
> 
> Plotwise, we are about to hit the halfway point of this fic. Yes, even though Grantaire and Enjolras are FINALLY about to get their SHIT together, there are miles to go before we sleep. Grantaire isn't the only thing resurfacing from Enjolras's past.
> 
> Aaand the next chapter will drop in three weeks on Friday, June 17th! See you then!


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